C&C appreciated

Irish Halo

I bought myself a D80 before Xmas (well no one else was going to do it for me) and have been playing with it ever since (even persuaded work to pay for a short training course so I should know what I'm doing).

I seem to do best with a 50mm lens and cats but also been playing with trying to do landscapes/buildings so thought I'd pick what I though were good and see what the denizens of this forum think.

First an almost feral cat taken with a 50mm f/1.8 (no PP):


A church spire in Dun Laoghaire(some PP to make the spire uniformly black and give the sky a tiny bit more contrast) taken with the kit lens 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 not sure what focal length:


I tried some "nature" photography with the birds in the folks back garden too, taken with a Sigma 70-300mm F/4-5.6 at 300mm:


Back in London now with a tripod so will be trying more urban scenes/night time shots.

melekalikimaka

first one is lovely, nice shot, second is awesome, excellent colours and lovely composition... the third... i dunno, the background ruins it for me... maybe if taken closer in with shallower dof maybe?

AnimalRights

I agree with Mel about #3.
#1 very interesting, I feed almost feral cats next to my job on a regular basis.

l pearse

Animal, you softie..:)

Irish Halo, Lucky you with a new D80, Hope you really enjoy lt..:D
The first is very very nice as is the silhouette of the church, do you have a Flickr site?

Linda

AnimalRights

l pearse wrote: »

Animal, you softie..:)

Note my name. :P
Some guy left his Jack Russell in the beer garden yesterday of the pub I was in so I stayed and kept it company in the beer garden even though I don't know the guy or smoke!

sure I don't even kill insects

Irish Halo

Thanks everyone I'm not keen on the last one but my original set up of the kit lens, sitting the camera on the tripod pretty close to the feeder and pointing the other way was too loud for the birds so they'd leg it every time I'd use the IR remote to set the camera off from inside the (warm) house.

Here is I think a slightly better one from my girlfriend's house:


I do have a Flickr but there is a lot of my old P&S stuff (from gigs and stuff, my next challenge is to see what I can do with the D80 at a gig) my set from this Xmas is the recent stuff from my D80 after I knew how to use it and has more poor shots of birds and good ones of cats (mostly not feral, this needs to be said or I'll be disowned for possibly referring to my pets as feral):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neasanoneill/sets/72157611630673511/

Sebzy

First one
Love the subject and the good use of the 50mm's DOF to obscure the background but there is something quite strange going on first i thought your AF was off and it was just not quite sharp but looking closer it looks like this was taken from behind glass. Was it? there seems to be reflections.
The bokeh seem a bit over exaggerated. can you let us know how this whot was taken?


Second one
Love this shot and love the fact that you can see the dove on the tower clearly. Would not change a thing.

Third one
not too sure about the birds it looks like a trick shot to compose with the birds so small they kinda get lost in the background. Maybe get a bit closer and try separate the birds from the green background a bit more.


Fourth one (in more recent post)
The poor birds are getting lost in the mess which is the background. i would get closer and use a wide aperture to to blue the background and focus more on the birds.


All in all good shots well done.

Irish Halo

Sebzy wrote: »

First one
Love the subject and the good use of the 50mm's DOF to obscure the background but there is something quite strange going on first i thought your AF was off and it was just not quite sharp but looking closer it looks like this was taken from behind glass. Was it? there seems to be reflections.
The bokeh seem a bit over exaggerated. can you let us know how this whot was taken?

I noticed the bokeh was weird but I did nothing to it in photoshop it just came out like that.

Didn't do anything special it's not taken from behind glass (the shots of the birds are) just composed the shot, made sure I was at 1.8, had my shutter at a good speed, focussed on the cat and took the shot.

Howitzer

#1 what has that cat been eating? lotta stuff around his chops

#2 Love this - really nice shot.

#3 Think you need to get closer with this and fill the frame with the birds.
Not easy to do I'm sure. Did you photograph this outside? or from a kitchen window? (I did some from a window recently just a little closer than this - still felt I needed to get closer)
I would say it would not be easy to get good and close - you would need a makeshift hide of some sort. Even though the birds are happy with the food they will still be on their guard.