flowers c&c

mumof2

exposure, and focus my main concerns here. Id like to get a blurred background but end up getting an all round blurred shot, so went for the all clear instead! I know its a higher aperature to get blurred backgrounds, but am I missing something other than playing around with the focusing to blur it - is that it?

Mountainsandh

Hi Mumof2, the others will explain waaaaaaaaaaay better than me, but the distance you are at to your subject will affect how your background blurs, in combination with wide aperture. That's focal length/Depth of field I think. So if you were zoomed in on the flowers, zoom out, and walk closer to them instead, and take a shot still with a wide aperture. You should achieve a more blurred background that way.
You could practice on a flower pot maybe. Take a pic from really close to it with wide aperture, then walk back a few meters, and try the same pic, you should be able to see the difference.
As I said the others will maybe correct me and explain way better, I've been at photography maybe 2 years now but still feel like such a learner.:o

edit : forgot to mention, your camera may not be able to focus on your subject very close, depending on the lens you are using, so you have to take that into account too. With some lenses you may be able to focus on something that's a minimum of 3 feet away for example, with others more, or less.

mumof2

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Hi Mumof2, the others will explain waaaaaaaaaaay better than me, but the distance you are at to your subject will affect how your background blurs, in combination with wide aperture. That's focal length/Depth of field I think. So if you were zoomed in on the flowers, zoom out, and walk closer to them instead, and take a shot still with a wide aperture. You should achieve a more blurred background that way.
You could practice on a flower pot maybe. Take a pic from really close to it with wide aperture, then walk back a few meters, and try the same pic, you should be able to see the difference.
As I said the others will maybe correct me and explain way better, I've been at photography maybe 2 years now but still feel like such a learner.:o

edit : forgot to mention, your camera may not be able to focus on your subject very close, depending on the lens you are using, so you have to take that into account too. With some lenses you may be able to focus on something that's a minimum of 3 feet away for example, with others more, or less.

Never thought of that actually. I was right up to the flowers, not zoomed in (at least not from a distance, however I can't remember now if the 12 - 24 lens was zoomed in as well as myself:D)

Thanks for tips. Wil try at home with flowers in pot (Thank god for the one plant I have:D)

AnCatDubh

exposure is reasonable in them all. from your exif I see you are using multi metering so in theory the camera should balance the exposure value for you which looks like what has been going on.

Focus looks a bit soft, but at the smaller size I can't pixel peep at it. A small bit of unsharp filter (applied sparingly) would sharpen it up if that's what you wish.

They are slightly 'flat' imho and would benefit from bumping the saturation up a little (again, use sparingly).

mumof2

AnCatDubh wrote: »

exposure is reasonable in them all. from your exif I see you are using multi metering so in theory the camera should balance the exposure value for you which looks like what has been going on.

Focus looks a bit soft, but at the smaller size I can't pixel peep at it. A small bit of unsharp filter (applied sparingly) would sharpen it up if that's what you wish.

They are slightly 'flat' imho and would benefit from bumping the saturation up a little (again, use sparingly).

What is exif and where did you get it from? How did you see I was using that particular metering? (my camera has Evaluative, partial, spot and center-weighted average metering functions). If I remember correctly (and I had my camera manual out checking this) I used Center Weighted Average.

How does one Pixel Peep? Read this in another post recently, and was linked to a site with different photographs taken with various lenses and was impressed at what my lens could do, but guess alot of it is post processing.

Where do I go to add saturation?

Thanks, Im learning more in the last 48hrs here than I have in the last year!!:D

AnCatDubh

Exif is the camera info that gets placed inside your jpg - you can view it in post processing software or windows right click->properties of the file or I like this online exif viewer - the image's exif which i viewed was this. In there it said multi segment metering (it might get confused as to the various metering modes which can be recorded in the exif).

In picasa 3 right click on the image and select properties. the exif will be in the window which appears on the right hand side of the screen.

Pixel peeping (for me) is just a larger version of the image that you can zoom in and view it at 100% or similar.

Saturation - in picassa 3 open your image. go to effects tab. click the saturation button, and use the slider to increase or decrease the saturation. (best used sparingly!)

mumof2

AnCatDubh wrote: »

Exif is the camera info that gets placed inside your jpg - you can view it in post processing software or windows right click->properties of the file or I like this online exif viewer - the image's exif which i viewed was this. In there it said multi segment metering (it might get confused as to the various metering modes which can be recorded in the exif).

In picasa 3 right click on the image and select properties. the exif will be in the window which appears on the right hand side of the screen.

Pixel peeping (for me) is just a larger version of the image that you can zoom in and view it at 100% or similar.

Saturation - in picassa 3 open your image. go to effects tab. click the saturation button, and use the slider to increase or decrease the saturation. (best used sparingly!)

Ok, apparently I knew what exif was just didn't know if was called that.

Same goes for Pixel peeping, and ive noticed most of my pictures lose focus when zoomed in when pixel peeping, which led me to my topic of focusing and exposure.

Ive never used saturation - basically cause I never knew what it did, but I was reading about it in a link someone posted here yesterday, so wil try it more often (sparingly):D

Thanks a million.

*eadaoin

mumof2 when I first started taking photos I used the book 'Photography' by Barbara London as a guide and it was really helpful. There's a new edition of it just out last year, so it should be pretty up to date:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Photography-Barbara-London/dp/0205718000/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299794651&sr=8-1

It might help if you had a source to read all at once about the very basics, as well as taking your camera out and experimenting with it of course!

It takes a little while to really grasp how ISO, aperture and shutter speed all work together, but if you keep experimenting you'll get it in no time!

You might also find it helpful to use a site like Flickr to look at images similar to ones you'd like to produce and find out what kind of camera settings people are using to get their results. Check out angles that look good, composition that looks good, focus, lighting etc. It will really help!

mumof2

*eadaoin wrote: »

mumof2 when I first started taking photos I used the book 'Photography' by Barbara London as a guide and it was really helpful. There's a new edition of it just out last year, so it should be pretty up to date:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Photography-Barbara-London/dp/0205718000/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299794651&sr=8-1

It might help if you had a source to read all at once about the very basics, as well as taking your camera out and experimenting with it of course!

It takes a little while to really grasp how ISO, aperture and shutter speed all work together, but if you keep experimenting you'll get it in no time!

You might also find it helpful to use a site like Flickr to look at images similar to ones you'd like to produce and find out what kind of camera settings people are using to get their results. Check out angles that look good, composition that looks good, focus, lighting etc. It will really help!

yes I have a flickr account, and have even some of my Sony Alpha images posted there, before changing to my current Canon 450D. I love looking at other peoples images for ideas and inspiration, it gives me push to get practicising again.

I have a couple of books already, but I find Im learning alot here, and too much info wil only confuse me anyhow, so wil hold off on buying more books til I have read Understanding Exposure which is on its way to me as we speak...ehh type.:D