My puppy

[Kellyj69]

This was taken outside with my Rebel Xs. I am new to photography and this is my first DSLR. It was taken in color and converted to b/w and cropped in Photoshop .. no other changes have been made to the original file.

I'm looking for critique as far as general quality, focus, composition.. and any other suggestions

[Dodge]

Hi Kelly,

That's a great shot and suits black and white for sure. I like the composition a lot too.

My main critique would be that the focus seems to be just in front of the eyes, rather than the eyes themselves. Understandable with pups fringe. You could try sharpening the image slightly in photoshop to improve this, or if you feel inclined, have another go, making sure you focus on his eyes by manually focusing.

Also, I'm not sure how much you cropped, but there is a little noise in the background areas. If you can try to get a closer composition to start with and crop less, this should also improve.

Remember too when focusing on his eyes, to check you have enough depth of field so that his nose stays sharp, as if you move closer for the shot, your depth of field will lessen as you move in.

Thats my limited experience exhausted. Hope it's of some use to you. (If you can post the exif data for the shot, other more experienced guys may be able to offer more in depth advice. Maybe try a free flickr account, it makes the whole posting/exif etc very straight forward.)

[Kellyj69]

thank you very much .. i don't think i cropped too much .. but unfortunately i saved the cropped version over the original

EXIF
shutter speed 1/125 sec
f/5.6
ISO 1600
no flash

[Dodge]

OOps I've done that before

I see from your exif, the ISO is very very high, that would account for the noise. You can improve on that in future with either more light or a slower shutter speed. I always try to shoot below 400 iso for that very reason.

Hopefully someone else can give you further tips regarding this that may prove useful in the future.

[Chip]

Nice photo. Taking a photo from the eye level of your dog can also help with perspective and composition.

You're off to a good start.