Crab on Galapagos Crab - How to crop and make sharper?

[teetime]

Enthusiatic beginner to digital photography and Photoshop: I took this pix on Galapagos.
(Nikon D40, 1/20s with f32, Nikkor VR 55-200mm, focal lenth 200mm and -0.7 compensation)
I would love to get tips on how to:
- make the crab sharper next time (i guess tripod would be good, but what if not available?)

As for this photo, i would love to hear how i can
- crop it to make it more interesting; and
- sharpen it with Photoshop (if that's possible).

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/47146451@N00/2240077253/" title="Crab by jiminyClickit, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/2210023865_56edb3576a.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="Crab" /></a>

Thx

[netbymatt]

Teetime,
A larger image would help analyze the sharpness problem. You are correct, a tripod would help out with the camera shake, but I think you could have taken this with a much faster shutter speed since you don't need nearly as much depth of field for this shot. Could you explain why you chose 1/20s and f/32. That will help all of us with your critique.

[jiminyClickit]

teetime, Welcome

Composition is so-so; you could reduce (in a crop) the extra sand/foam at top and left side. The crab would then be a little closer to that thirds line, and those extra distractions gotten rid of. More sand space in foreground could help.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/47146451@N00/2243041689/" title="Crab by jiminyClickit, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2362/2243041689_1abd571f9c.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Crab" /></a>

[teetime]

[QUOTE=netbymatt;104587]Teetime,
A larger image would help analyze the sharpness problem.
You are correct, a tripod would help out with the camera shake, but I think you could have taken this with a much faster shutter speed since you don't need nearly as much depth of field for this shot. Could you explain why you chose 1/20s and f/32.

Sorry, this is my first thread -- tried to edit my thread and upload a bigger file but couldn't figure out how to do it, yet. So here's a URL link for a bigger file on my flickr account:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/2210023865_56edb3576a.jpg

I was shooting in shutter priority mode and was focussing on the shutter speed - didn't pay attention to aperture. My cam chose it. I was about one meter away from the crab so i guess that f/11 would have been enough?

Thanks for feedback.

[teetime]

[QUOTE=netbymatt;104587]Teetime,


Sorry, this is my first thread -- tried to edit my thread and upload a bigger file but couldn't figure out how to do it, yet. So here's a URL link for a bigger file on my flickr account:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/2210023865_56edb3576a.jpg



Hmm, somehow my medium picture file [1.1KB] is too big to be uploaded to the forum. Any other way to to either make my medium file smaller or upload it? Thanks.

[teetime]

teetime, Welcome

Composition is so-so; you could reduce (in a crop) the extra sand/foam at top and left side. The crab would then be a little closer to that thirds line, and those extra distractions gotten rid of. More sand space in foreground could help.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/47146451@N00/2243041689/" title="Crab by jiminyClickit, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2362/2243041689_1abd571f9c.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Crab" /></a>

I see what you mean. Thanks a lot.

[wulf]

Hmm, somehow my medium picture file [1.1KB] is too big to be uploaded to the forum. Any other way to to either make my medium file smaller or upload it? Thanks.
The easiest way is to link to the picture on Flickr, like you did in the first post. You will either have to provide a directly link to a larger version or make the picture public.

Wulf

[teetime]

Ok, thank you. Here's the link to the picture. Still long way to go...:rolleyes:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/2210023865_56edb3576a_b.jpg

[ELAY]

Following your link helped. The crab isn't all that soft.

What is nice here, whether deliberate or not, is that because you used a longish shutter speed, you got a nice flowing effect in the surf, which contrasts with the static figure of the crab. The colour contrast is obviously very nice too.

Your crab is not perfectly sharp -- it may be because of camera shake (tripod would help), but it also may be because of "crab shake" if the crab was moving, or being carried along by the surf a bit.

There are a bunch of sharpening tools in photoshop. If there is an edge sharpen or smart sharpen option, I might start there. I might also be tempted to sharpen just the crab -- either by using a selection or a layer mask. If you sharpen the whole thing you may end up with some noise/grain in the rest of the photo.

Finally, if you are up to it I think that getting rid of the rock formation thing in the foreground would help your composition. I think the photo would be more powerful. How are you with the clone brush?

[teetime]

@Elay - thanks, these are great starting points for me to work on.

"clone brush"..hmm, as said, enthusiatic, but beginner :) ...but will look it up and see what i can do with it.

For once i can proudly say that the blurry effect of the water was intended (that's why i shot in shutter priority) -- still wonder why my camera put f/30 for that picture...

What aperture would be best for a situation like this (cloudy mid-day light, crab was about 1 meter away from me)?

[netbymatt]

If you we're trying to show the motion of the water, than shooting in shutter priority with 1/20th was the best choice. Your camera chose f/30 to keep the image from being over exposed. Even though it was cloudy, because you were outdoors, there's still a ton of light. It may not seem that way to our eyes because they're pretty good at adjusting for it.

Something to keep in mind when thinking about exposure, shutter and aperture are the same thing, they both control the amount of light hitting the sensor/film. Next time you've got your camera out, put it in shutter priority and look through the viewfinder while adjusting the shutter speed one "click" at a time on the main dial. You'll notice for every click that you go to a slower shutter speed (more light), the camera will choose the next smallest aperture (less light) to compensate.

[ELAY]

You shot on a fairly low shutter speed to get the flow, which was your choice and I think a good one here -- on a bright day like this, the camera is going to pick a small aperture (in this case f/32 or something) in order to make sure that the pic was not overexposed.

If you were to pick a lower f/stop, then your shutter speed would have to change to compensate, and you would lose the effect in the water. (You can cheat a bit by playing with ISO, but at the expense of some noise.) So I think by and large if your goal is to get the nice water texture, then you set your shutter speed and take what the camera gives you in terms of aperture.

The best book I have seen for explaining the relationships between shutter speed, aperture and ISO, and for explaining the situations in which you would prioritize each, is Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson.

If I were not worried about the flowing water look, I would probably shoot something like this at f/8 or f/11.

EL