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General Photography thread
- Thread starter SeagullSongs
- Start date
Jack Straw
I look nothing like him!
As I strive to become a better self-taught photographer, one of the things I do is to look at the "Recent photos" on Flickr every day and "Favourite" the ones I really like. The ones of bits of things, especially animals, I really like. As I read somewhere when I saw a wonderful photo of just a horse's nostrils, "Horse photos are two-a-penny". It was a fascinating photo. I knew it was a horse!
However, here is the full face of the same cat. He's a very good model!
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Kneon Light
Well-known member
Rare red footed falcon seen near Lewes recently
Kneon Light
Well-known member
A pair of Gannets from a recent visit to Yorkshire
I agree with getting in close with the cat and not showing the whole face, I just think it would be better with two eyes. Still tight, not showing the whole face. Would the horse photo have worked as well if you cropped out one of its nostrils?
Bingo
Rare red footed falcon seen near Lewes recently
Jack Straw
I look nothing like him!
Yep. Good point about one nostril! In the "One-eye" cat photo, I used the "Rule of thirds with the eye and the nose and quite liked it. Your feed back is always good and welcomed Triggaar, thanks.
Jack Straw
I look nothing like him!
You really are the kiddie Kneon. Another corker. Well done.
Rare red footed falcon seen near Lewes recently
If you like it then that's what really matters. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder an' all that, and if you do things the way you like you'll end up with your own individual style, rather than doing the same as everyone else. Personally I find it a bit uncomfortable to look at, but I'm a bit boring. I like how intense his face is, and the tight crop is nice, I just want that extra eye. I'm not sure where you were going with the rule of thirds. Have you got a wider crop of the same shot? There are conventions on where to chop things like limbs off in a picture - for example it's normal to avoid cutting off by a joint, like wrists, so it doesn't look like you've chopped their hands off. For some reason it's perfectly fine to chop half their arm off though
Thanks, and you're welcome.
Jack Straw
I look nothing like him!
I put the eye in the top left "hot spot" and the nose in the bottom right equivalent, these being two of the four powerful positions of interest according to the "Rule of Thirds" how I interpret it. I've put here the original and the crop. It would be interesting to see which one people prefer?
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Jack Straw
I look nothing like him!
Help Please Kneon, Or Anyone Else!
Spent a couple of hours this afternoon trying to photograph Blue Tits as they zoomed out of their nesting box. Used a tripod with my Nikon D7100 and 80 - 400 mm lens. After disappointing results with the camera in Aperture mode, I switched to Shutter Speed mode as the speed of these little buggers left me initially with nice pictures of blurs! I started off at 1,000 and moved steadily up to 4,000 as none of the photos were in focus. My camera was adjusted to continual focus, and as soon as I saw the birds in the hole ready for take off, I kept my finger on the trigger firing off photos like there was no tomorrow. With the high speed setting comes the wide aperture - f 5.3. Would this be why only the legs were in focus, roughly where I was initially focussing? Should I have been in Manual mode with a high shutter speed and narrower aperture? What was I doing wrong? Any help would be much appreciated.
These are the best of a bad bunch.
Spent a couple of hours this afternoon trying to photograph Blue Tits as they zoomed out of their nesting box. Used a tripod with my Nikon D7100 and 80 - 400 mm lens. After disappointing results with the camera in Aperture mode, I switched to Shutter Speed mode as the speed of these little buggers left me initially with nice pictures of blurs! I started off at 1,000 and moved steadily up to 4,000 as none of the photos were in focus. My camera was adjusted to continual focus, and as soon as I saw the birds in the hole ready for take off, I kept my finger on the trigger firing off photos like there was no tomorrow. With the high speed setting comes the wide aperture - f 5.3. Would this be why only the legs were in focus, roughly where I was initially focussing? Should I have been in Manual mode with a high shutter speed and narrower aperture? What was I doing wrong? Any help would be much appreciated.
These are the best of a bad bunch.
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It doesn't have to be all or nothing
Well I've never attempted anything so difficult, so we'll have to wait for Kneon. But your position isn't changing, and your light's not changing, so I'd use manual mode. Fast shutter speed and experiment with different apertures. Don't forget you can raise ISO if you want a smaller aperture. But you're having focusing problems, they're back focused as your camera isn't keeping up. There are other settings as well as continuous focus that will effect what happens (check your AF settings, eg set AF Focus with Lock-On to off).
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Kneon Light
Well-known member
Not an easy shot to get Jack. Fast birds flying toward you are an absolute bugger to photograph!
The advantage you have though is that they will be flying directly toward you from a fixed position (the nest hole) so you will have an idea of where they will be going.
There are a couple of things you can try - if you are using Auto Focus make sure the sensitivity is set to be as fast as possible. This is not something I usually do becasue as soon as the focus point leaves the bird it will re-focus elsewhere. If you can keep it directly on the bird it may keep up depending on the speed of the camera or lens (sorry I use Canon so not sure about your set up). This is still incredibly difficult though as the camera will focus on the nest box as soon as the bird leaves the focus point.
In all your shots the bird is in roughly the same position/distance from the nest box. One thing you can try that works quite well is to pre-focus on a point where the bird is likely to fly. If someone can help you get them to put there hand at the point you want to photograph the bird and focus using Auto focus - then switch o Manual Focus. You can then fire away when the bird flys and you should get in-focus shots when the bird flys through the area you have focussed on. F5.6 will be quite a narrow depth of field so I would drop down to F8 to give yourself more chance of success. Push the ISO as high as you can go without introducing too much noise as you will need high shutter speeds. This method is a bit hit and miss as even with high speed continuous shots there is no guarantee you will capture the bird at exactly the point you focussed on. The advantage of doing it with a bird from a nest box though is that at least you should get multiple tries!
The advantage you have though is that they will be flying directly toward you from a fixed position (the nest hole) so you will have an idea of where they will be going.
There are a couple of things you can try - if you are using Auto Focus make sure the sensitivity is set to be as fast as possible. This is not something I usually do becasue as soon as the focus point leaves the bird it will re-focus elsewhere. If you can keep it directly on the bird it may keep up depending on the speed of the camera or lens (sorry I use Canon so not sure about your set up). This is still incredibly difficult though as the camera will focus on the nest box as soon as the bird leaves the focus point.
In all your shots the bird is in roughly the same position/distance from the nest box. One thing you can try that works quite well is to pre-focus on a point where the bird is likely to fly. If someone can help you get them to put there hand at the point you want to photograph the bird and focus using Auto focus - then switch o Manual Focus. You can then fire away when the bird flys and you should get in-focus shots when the bird flys through the area you have focussed on. F5.6 will be quite a narrow depth of field so I would drop down to F8 to give yourself more chance of success. Push the ISO as high as you can go without introducing too much noise as you will need high shutter speeds. This method is a bit hit and miss as even with high speed continuous shots there is no guarantee you will capture the bird at exactly the point you focussed on. The advantage of doing it with a bird from a nest box though is that at least you should get multiple tries!
Kneon Light
Well-known member
This is an example of a fast bird (though not as fast as a blue tit!) flying toward me. I used AF and set the sensitivity to high so had to ensure the bird didn't leave the focus point (bird is larger than a blue tit so easier!). Even so I still had to step down to F8 as at F5.6 the depth of field was too narrow to nail the focus. This meant I lost shutter speed and so the wings are blurred but I quite like the effect of this.
I'm not wanting to teach you to suck eggs here, but just for clarity, the rule of thirds is just a guide to help us think about composition. When people take snap shots of a horizon smack in the middle, it would normally be improved by moving the horizon up of down in the frame. I'd normally stick it close to a third from top or bottom, but that's just a guide, and you'll see great pictures where the horizon is much lower than that, for example.
Here are my crops of your terrifying neighbour:
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Jack Straw
I look nothing like him!
I have to admit that they are rather good! I think I might be trying to be too arty before I've mastered the paint brush!!
Thanks too for you advice on the Blue Tits.
Jack Straw
I look nothing like him!
Thanks for this Kneon. If I can find the time before the young ones have fledged, I'll have another go taking your advice on board.
Zukey Seagull
Well-known member
Thanks, I had to be very patient to get just the right expression. I learnt his movements and behaviour, and set myself in just the right place near a mouse hole, and when the predator got whiff of the mice I was ready. I had to get my settings bang on as he pounced a fraction of a second later. Oh no wait, you took it not me