An afternoon at the Beach

[jbwhitehurst]

I got Nikon d40x for Christmas and have spent the past few days learning how to use it. Yesterday, my wife and I took our puppy to the beach and played around with our new camera. This my favorite shot from the day, but i think the background my be a little too blurred. Please give me suggestions on what I could have done to make this shot better.

[FrankenPengie]

Why is it bloodhounds look old so young?

Looks like a picture of two subjects too far apart. Having a subject as a background makes for a background that looks blurry because the brain is trying to make it part of the subject.

Nice thought.

[clockdoc]

Hi and welcome! A few more details such as lens/focal length used and aperture may help us in a critique of your shot. It is a well exposed shot for the puppy but the hghlights have lost detail in your wife's jacket. Keep shooting and posting. I'll be happy to help where I can.

[jbwhitehurst]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I was using a 55-200mm lens. ISO 100. Aperture f/7.1. Shutter 1/250

[clockdoc]

Looking at the aperture of f/7.1 and the short depth of field you must have been in the telephoto range of your lens or your wife was considerably farther away from the puppy to have be so out-of-focus. Do you recall those approximate distances (camera-to-puppy and puppy-to-wife)? I don't know how much you know about depth-of-field and how it is affected by the aperture you select so I'll await any more questions you may have. Thanks for posting the expisure details as it helps evaluate the images for critique. Picasa doesn't provide those EXIF properties like a flickr account does.