Newbie photographer
- Thread starter Shawn D
- Start date
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Oh cool you got your 135mm soft focus? I remember when you were deciding what to buy. That shot of your yellow lab is great. Very sharp with great composition and depth of field. I like your peacock wrasse as well! 
IPT
Active member
Nice. I'll just point out to be aware of your backgrounds. If you were a smidge higher on the lab shot you would have eliminated that light table edge or cloth in the left upper part of the shot. That would have left you with a much cleaner image. Of course you could just PS it out too . Simple attention to details like this pay off in the end.
To this day sometimes I still get caught up in the moment and then when I'm home realize a tiny shift left, right, or up/down would have elimated some distracting element somewhere in a shot.
. Simple attention to details like this pay off in the end. To this day sometimes I still get caught up in the moment and then when I'm home realize a tiny shift left, right, or up/down would have elimated some distracting element somewhere in a shot.
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Croping that out would have cut the top of the dog's head off below the ears. 
Reef Bass
colors and textures
Both pics show good exposure, focus and DOF.
Nice wrasse. I'd probably have cropped him a bit tighter. I like how I can see the rear "fangs" in his mouth. Are those hard like teeth or just soft protruberances from the lips?
Nice lab. IMHO, cropped too tight. IPT's point about composing the shot without the distracting element in the upper left is right on.
Nice wrasse. I'd probably have cropped him a bit tighter. I like how I can see the rear "fangs" in his mouth. Are those hard like teeth or just soft protruberances from the lips?
Nice lab. IMHO, cropped too tight. IPT's point about composing the shot without the distracting element in the upper left is right on.
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Look directly in front of the Wrasse's face, there is a big black mass of paint brush.
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Recty called first dibs on that one! There are also the very harsh stamp tool spots dotting the image. Perfect circles of color which does not belong.
With the black it almost looks like he started to isolate the fish with a pure black background and just gave up but saved the work anyway.
With the black it almost looks like he started to isolate the fish with a pure black background and just gave up but saved the work anyway.
Titus you are right about me doing a complete black background but then I thought it made it a little too unnatural so I stopped, there where several specs in the original that I tried to erase with the black paint brush and clone stamp tool. Here is the original un-PP photo
Do you think it would look better with a completely black background or should I just try to get rid of the specs?
Do you think it would look better with a completely black background or should I just try to get rid of the specs?
Recty
New member
My eyes are legendary, my powers of focus astounding, my skills of observation godlike in comparison to you mere mortals.
With that out of the way, the reason I noticed is I've recently gotten into Photoshop and editing pictures, it looked like one of my first attempts at blacking out a background
Heart & Sole
New member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14380606#post14380606 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Shawn D
Titus you are right about me doing a complete black background but then I thought it made it a little too unnatural so I stopped, there where several specs in the original that I tried to erase with the black paint brush and clone stamp tool. Here is the original un-PP photo
Do you think it would look better with a completely black background or should I just try to get rid of the specs?
I would leave the rocks that are in focus and black out the rest of the background.
IPT
Active member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14376488#post14376488 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TitusvileSurfer
Croping that out would have cut the top of the dog's head off below the ears.
I didn't say he should "crop" it. I suggested that if he would have simply gotten the lens about 2 inches higher, relative to the dog (who would have almost certainly kept eye contact with him to see what he was doing) that would have eliminated that distracting element from the background.
The negative space above his head works for this shot so I agree cropping would lesson the quality of the image. A nice clean solid colored negative space/background would enhance it.
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Ahh yes I see
davefrombinary
New member
Fantastic looking wrasse!
Trying to give some constructive criticism on the photo itself...
I think your shutter speed was a little low for shooting hand held at the focal length you were using. That gives the image that slight blurriness or shakiness. A good rule of thumb for shooting hand held (without a tripod) is that you want your shutter speed to be faster than your focal length (on a 35 mm camera).
I’m sure you noticed your dog photo is much crisper.
Digital cameras have a conversion factor general between 1.25 and 2.0 (you can search for you camera and the word “conversion factor†to find this value pretty easily if you don’t already know it). In other words at 135 MM with a conversion factor of 2.0 you need a shutter speed of at least 1/270 (so use 1/320).
The shutter speed and f-stop (aperture size) work together to control the amount of light exposed to your sensor. General speaking (and I just started trying to do tank photos earlier this week), the amount of light coming from your tank is a lot less than the amount of light taking a photo on a sunny day outside. To increase your viable shutter speed you can set your f-stop to a lower number which will decrease the depth of field of your image. Another option is to increase the ISO setting on your camera which is like using faster film (meaning it doesn’t need as much light exposure to create an image). I would experiment a bunch and try out those settings.
In terms of composition that is much more a matter of opinion and comes down to how YOU want the image to flow and feel (imo). Generally I’ve found the rule of thirds to be a great starting point.
Sorry if this was a little too involved, just trying to help you out.
Trying to give some constructive criticism on the photo itself...
I think your shutter speed was a little low for shooting hand held at the focal length you were using. That gives the image that slight blurriness or shakiness. A good rule of thumb for shooting hand held (without a tripod) is that you want your shutter speed to be faster than your focal length (on a 35 mm camera).
I’m sure you noticed your dog photo is much crisper.
Digital cameras have a conversion factor general between 1.25 and 2.0 (you can search for you camera and the word “conversion factor†to find this value pretty easily if you don’t already know it). In other words at 135 MM with a conversion factor of 2.0 you need a shutter speed of at least 1/270 (so use 1/320).
The shutter speed and f-stop (aperture size) work together to control the amount of light exposed to your sensor. General speaking (and I just started trying to do tank photos earlier this week), the amount of light coming from your tank is a lot less than the amount of light taking a photo on a sunny day outside. To increase your viable shutter speed you can set your f-stop to a lower number which will decrease the depth of field of your image. Another option is to increase the ISO setting on your camera which is like using faster film (meaning it doesn’t need as much light exposure to create an image). I would experiment a bunch and try out those settings.
In terms of composition that is much more a matter of opinion and comes down to how YOU want the image to flow and feel (imo). Generally I’ve found the rule of thirds to be a great starting point.
Sorry if this was a little too involved, just trying to help you out.
Thanks David, on that shot I used 1/250s, f2.8, and ISO800. I will try going higher next time for sure though. The weird thing is I only had 1/25s on the dog photo with the same lens. I have been trying to follow that rule but would that just be a rare exception where the dog photo came out that sharp?
I really appreciate the response.
I really appreciate the response.
davefrombinary
New member
Where you using a tripod for the dog photo? I think the shutter speed you were using sounds like it should be good at 135mm with your camera (1.6 conversion) for the tank photo. It might have just been that you weren't hold the camera "that" still.
It sort of a rough figure that usually works hand held if you are holding the camera pretty still (at least that has been my experience). I tend to hold my breath while shooting and keep the camera as stable as possible.
It sort of a rough figure that usually works hand held if you are holding the camera pretty still (at least that has been my experience). I tend to hold my breath while shooting and keep the camera as stable as possible.
