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Farm Photos (last ones before the camera is repaired me thinks)


Z

Zeealex

Retired Forum Moderator
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Went down to the farm this morning, with my camera for it's last day out before it's sent for repairs, i got these:
1)
Squire.jpg
2)
IMGP4320.jpg
3)
IMGP4319.jpg
4)
IMGP4317.jpg
5)
IMGP4315.jpg
6)
IMGP4278.jpg

the star of my (small) sig, Seb, she's an evil chicken.
7)
IMGP4249.jpg
8)
IMGP4254.jpg
9)
IMGP4223.jpg
10)
IMGP4209.jpg
11)
IMGP4138.jpg
12)
IMGP4221.jpg

#9 is baby rabbit, in case you were wondering, he's not dead, his eyes are still not ready to open.

got plenty more, but i just want to see how these go down first.



hope you like them, feel free to give constructive criticism and if you feel it is best to edit the photos for example purposes, go for it!

P.S
can someone sharpen this one up for me, i love it but the blur's a little meeh!
IMGP4234.jpg
 
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Honestly my criticism you will not like but as you have asked for it I will give my opinion. Which you will learn over time as a photographer is the composition of all of them are not good as photo snaps they are all ok but there is nothing there that sets you out as a photographer. ( which is what I assume you are working towards.)

either the backgrounds are to busy and bright or you have tightly cropped your framing to be missing off details that would improve the picture.

The dog for example (profile shot) you have chopped of his ear however the framing is good just the background is distracting. maybe decrease the vibrance and saturation in the background only to make the dog pop out.

the lighting is all harsh and contrasty but sometimes that cant be helped unless you can get an animal to stand still whilst you get someone to hold a reflector. However a speed light could help balance it out.

your aperatures are quite low and that is fine for certain pictures but can also take away from some pictures.

I dont know what pentax offers but have you turned of image stabilisation or camera shake etc as all of them look a bit soft.

The only 1 I would say has potential is your daffodil however you have cropped off the top and didnt move the 1 behind it if you wanted both of them in the frame then I would say get your camera on the ground and shoot upwards so they are both fully in frame well the heads at least.

I know this will upset you but you will find as you advance as a photographer you will produce worse pics because you are trying to be creative and not be the typical person that takes shots without altering there body to get the best angle etc and just shoots as wide to get everything in.

You will get the hang of it but my tip is learn framing or more importantly learn what your viewfinder shows compared to what your image sensor is seeing most viewfinders are not 100% and on sunny days like this you can increase your shutter speed to remove the soft edges

Sorry
 
Harsh but true I suppose. I followed advice given last time and they still turn out bad? It's like I'm going around in circles here, don't take it as offence hoogle but I'm ready to give up

All shots were aperture priority, with shake reduction ON.

I'm going to have to face that unless someone shows me kinasthetically what to do, I will continue to misunderstand people's advice and continue to take bad shots.

The "sets you out" bit went missing after I tried too hard to apply the rule of thirds.
 
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Sorry on my phone again so the paragraphs didn't break up. Stoopid phone. It's late so I'm a bit touchier,it's been a long day...
 
when you send your camera of get them to check the sensor as well unless you are compressing them. If you are shooting in aperature priority then the shutter speed should be automatic. It could be your whole camera is bad.

I have not met a photographer yet who goes out and stakes stunning pictures every time. I went out the other week for 4 hours and just couldnt se anything I liked and came back with nothing after taking all my kit and tripods with me including lighting and walking for that time for nothing especially lugging all that equpment around is dis heartening.

And yet I have been with people that can turn nothing into cracking pictures.

I have also been out come back with 200+ pictures and deleted 199 straight away

It is just the way it goes sometimes.

I find sometimes you can get so focused on the subject you are photographing and dont even notice what is in the background.

If photography was easy then we would all be doing it but its not and it takes a lot of experience and practice to understand what is a good picture. And then even harder is how to take it. And without watching tutorial DVDS going to classes or even joining your local camera club I bet you have 1 then it will be almost impossible for you to learn.

get on youtube and start looking up photography tutorials browse for dvds that you may want for your birthday. or better still ask for a subscription to Kelby training they have a fantastic range of photography tutorial dvds. Its an expensive hobby to get the equipment and unfortunately so is the training.

My priorities are if I was you
Join your local photography club they are often free or a couple of quid a week a good club will have walkabouts, meetings at places sometimes organise trips away or day trips, Lectures with professional photographers etc.

Just dont give up going out for a few times with a camera does not make you a photographer but understanding what your doing does. and you will suddenly click you have to know the rules before you can break them.

Stick at it. And I am sorry to sound negative but I would rather tell you than have your thread ignored. Dont let it get you down you have heard of a struggling Artist then pretend that is you.

Focus on 1 area at a time and then vary it up and then specialise once you have found your passion. Your passion will be what you are naturally good at.

and remember you can always crop a picture in post production but it is a lot harder to add something that isnt there.

As a rule I would say get it as right as possible in camera and have minimal editing afterwards. But as you are learning shoot wider and crop once you realise what a good crop is you will automatically think about it when you take your shots.

You probably have a grid option in your view finder activate it so you can see the rules of 3rds etc whilst framing your shots.
 
thanks for the tips (and the chicken sharpening) :) I'll bin these off and try something new, like people photography (que dramatic music)

I've got an empty fish tank, that's a place to start right? plenty of things to do with an empty fish tank.

i suppose gaining some imaginative ideas for what to do wouldn't harm, eh?

no I'm not being sarcastic before anyone starts. :rolleyes:

may seem like I'm making excuses here, but is ZILCH to do with photography around here, it's all football and dance classes (please, me doing football and dance classes yeah, right, keep dreaming.)

got to give you some thanks in the sense that you keep it to one post, rather than carrying on when i've already got the message i know a fair few people on other forums like that, urr so irritating!

I'll stop being a scaredy nickers and shoot RAW more often as well.

Mothero said it will take some time before she can get the camera shipped off, the insurance will be high on it and stuff so i've got at least two weeks of it before the camera goes bye bye, tbh the more i use it after the errors begin to arise, the more chance there is of me finding MORE errors to report, therefore i won't get them again when i get back.


I COMPLETELY see where you are coming from with the sensor thing the shutter speeds have been rather weird, i've used it on sunny days like yesterday and i got the full 1/6000th once, but yesterday, it was acting up something wicked it overexposed itself in LOADs of the photos and under exposed in the other half, only a few got the right exposure.

there's a weird black spot that appears WITHOUT fail on all of my photos (and weird noise on ISO 400?)
lookey and see:

(full size for better quality)
IMGP3727.jpg
IMGP3711.jpg
IMGP4209-1.jpg
Used the sky ones as the color is relatively the same so it stands out better.

got any idea what it is? i thought it was lens dust, but i've dusted the lens like mad and checked the sensor for dust and dirt, nothing, i did a pixel map as well, yet that black spot is consistently there.

feel free to comment on the composition of those as well, understanding they aren't very interesting of course.
 
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A couple of Things your camera is still under warranty they should pay for everything and if you bought it from a local shop just take it back to them and they will ship it.

The black mark looks like dust either in your lens or on your sensor.

shooting at 1\6000th of a second you will only be able to get that speed in shutter priority or manual mode unlikely aperature priority.

Fish tanks can be a good start you can do anything you want fillit up with milk get some food colouring and colour some milk and drop some in via a dropper and shoot the tiny droplets that bounce up quite interesting there you go something to get you started.

There are many aperatures to choose from so need to always stick to f5 and below. I know DOF is a big thing in photography but that is useless if you cant get a well framed shot etc.
 
around that general area yes, although we are all over the place these days. now STOP SPYING ON ME CREEP XD jk don't kill me :P
 
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Hoogle said:
The black mark looks like dust either in your lens or on your sensor.

shooting at 1\6000th of a second you will only be able to get that speed in shutter priority or manual mode unlikely aperature priority.

Fish tanks can be a good start you can do anything you want fillit up with milk get some food colouring and colour some milk and drop some in via a dropper and shoot the tiny droplets that bounce up quite interesting there you go something to get you started.
Click to expand...

never knew that i'll run it past mum

yeah, like i said though, did MANY dust removal actions on the sensor, dust alert shows nothing, the lens has been dusted like mad so that's why i was curious.

i was in manual XD just looked at the info on it.

i was thinking EXACTLY the same, although i don't think the family would appreciate blue milk XD oh well, might be an issue with the lack of flash and all. worth a shot though. no pun intended. either that or food coloring and water and shooting the little plumes it leaves as it spreads out.
 
your are full of great ideas! i'll try that thanks, we've got no milk anyway XD just setting it up now, getting really cruddy shutter speeds though even with the tank light on next to it. i'll put it in manual, set the shutter speeds higher than the camera suggests and do an exposure change in photoshop, sound okay? or a bit bleeh?
 
well this kind of photography always looks better with post production and you dont want it to bright otherwise the milk will get blown out try and get your camera above it so the whole frame is just milk. I find it easier with a flash as it freezes the motion and produces sharper image. do you have a wireless remote for your camera or or a cable shutter release it is usually easier to fire it of in burst mode rather than just getting the timing spot on with 1 frame.

if you had a flash you could bounce that off coloured paper to add colours to the milk naturally.

Here is a thread with good info from another forum
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=208624&highlight=macro+photography
 
thanks for the tips and the tute link i'll take a look at it now, got some mediocre shots of splashes in the fish tank, they'll need post production and i have a really bad feeling all of them are blurred. and VERY noisy (12600 ISO)
 
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