Kiwi Portrait

[geotography]

You procure a camera and then immediately thereafter start slicing up a family of Kiwis for a shoot. I suppose most people want to shoot Kiwi at least once in their lives. Well, here is my attempt to shoot the green fruit with all those tiny seeds. What could I have done better?

I should add that this shot was supported by fruit and legumes, as this was the first time I used my new 7-pound beanbag tripod that I made from dried black beans and an old pant leg.

[FrankenPengie]

I really wish this was a bigger picture.

[niko-time]

Yeh, plus I get a 404 error when I try and enlarge it?

[geotography]

my apologies to both of you for the 404 error. At this moment, I am at a loss as to why that is. Ideas? It is some user box that I have failed to check or vice versa. I will get it fixed as soon as I find out what it is.

[geotography]

Niko-Time and FrankenPengie,

The matter is resolved and the Error 404 should not come up.

[MikeM]

The link works for me.

I like the simplicity of the shot. Black background, 1 subject, 2 in the background, and whatever you have them sitting on.

I also like the different views of the fruit: the slice, the end, and the side shots.

I think it could benefit from some more perspective or dimension. If you like this head on viewpoint, maybe the background kiwis could be higher or lower. Or you could come at a 45 degree angle from above.

I notice you shot this at f/11. Maybe you could open up to throw the other kiwis out of focus some more or stop down to bring more into focus. The background kiwis are just fuzzy enough that I can't decide if they're supposed to be in focus or not.

And if you're shooting with a tripod, why not bring the ISO down? This one is at 800.

How do you like the K10D? I'm looking to get a dSLR soon and I'm pretty set on the K10D. What other cameras did you consider?

[niko-time]

Nice shot. Now, I'm not good at photography but from a casual onlooker I find the blue in the bottom right hand corner a bit too...blue. Could you darken it up perhaps? It takes my eyes away from the kiwi.

[jiminyClickit]

geotography,

Cut the actual fruit, absolutely. Cut the image when shooting it? Maybe in a Macro, but this has three subjects, one touching frame on right, one cut off on bottom, one in black with no detail on left, and one-third empty black on top. Closer, or farther away, would help take care of those concerns. Otherwise a good shot.

[oriolhdz]

Hi geotography:
I think a white background would be better for those kiwis or other color that contrast the green color. Also as other members said trying other angle could benefit the picture and of course be careful with the crop as JC said.

[geotography]

Thanks for your comments. A few replies:

• --Actually the kiwi on front stage was cropped in the kitchen. At the time, I thought it would be good to square it off so it would sit still; you know how those kiwis wiggle around. Now in retrospect I see that was not such a good idea.
  --The blue in the lower right corner is actually a faded black corduroy shirt that just didn't cut it. I too did not like it and tried to contrast it to black but my tuning was affecting the other part of the photo
  --I will try white background but I intentionally chose black because I think colorful food looks good against black
  --I was making fun of shooting kiwis as if they were a bit cliche; however, I do believe they make good practice subjects and I will, as you all suggested try different angles
  --Lastly, I am no expert on cameras but I did my homework, , as I trust you will MikeM, and the K10d is everything that I wanted. You know the features; they are all true. You may already know that a fella named Peter Burian wrote a book on the Pentax K10d. I soaked that up while I was digging into the manual. Now I can't wait to compliment the K10d with other lenses

Again, thanks for your comments. I will be reviewing them more in the days to come.

Best,