Am I just kidding myself,.....???

[faeriegodess612]

I feel as if I've lost my creativity or something. It's like since I've gotten my DSLR, I'm not getting the shots that I want more times than not. I wonder if it has something to do with my lens, and that it doesnt have the reach that I want, so therefore I can't get the composition or framing that I'd like to get SOOC. I look at my point and shoot "portfolio" and like it more than I do my DSLR portfolio.

You can see what I'm talking about on my Flickr. Although they vary slightly from what I have in Picasa folders, and what I have on Flickr, as to the full content of both. It seems like the shots in my D3100 portfolio are dull and flat and boring. And mostly of architecture. While my P&S portfolio has life, and color and variety.

It's almost like the more I learn, the more I forget what I've learned.


Something else completely off my own topic,...when you resize for web, do you set a pixel per inch?

[Bruce A]

I think this is something a lot us struggle with or have struggled with. You just have to go out and keep shooting and try and get those imagination juices flowing. Keep looking at photographs from the masters and try to learn by their composition, framing and lighting etc. Practice, practice, and then more practice and keep doing it as long as it's fun.

As for sizing for the web, I don't know what software you use, but as I only put a few of my shots on Flickr as jpegs I now save them at the highest quality as I'm not too sure how Flickr compresses them.

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by faeriegodess612

I feel as if I've lost my creativity or something. It's like since I've gotten my DSLR, I'm not getting the shots that I want more times than not. I wonder if it has something to do with my lens, and that it doesnt have the reach that I want, so therefore I can't get the composition or framing that I'd like to get SOOC. I look at my point and shoot "portfolio" and like it more than I do my DSLR portfolio.

You can see what I'm talking about on my Flickr. Although they vary slightly from what I have in Picasa folders, and what I have on Flickr, as to the full content of both. It seems like the shots in my D3100 portfolio are dull and flat and boring. And mostly of architecture. While my P&S portfolio has life, and color and variety.

It's almost like the more I learn, the more I forget what I've learned.


Something else completely off my own topic,...when you resize for web, do you set a pixel per inch?

As I understand it, P&S cameras do more to the image in camera in terms of processing the jpg, whereas unless you set the DSLR to do it, it won't. Hence feeling flat and dull.

As far as not being able to get the composition and framing you'd like, how is that the problem of the hardware? If you don't have a longer zoom, use your feet and get closer. If It's something you can't get closer to, find something else to work on.

Take up a project or something. What do you even want out of your photography?

[kcoppock]

Damn, just typed up a long reply and Chrome ate it.

I know the feeling you've got, it usually hits me off and on every few days when I wonder "Why the hell am I even doing this?" Sometimes I just feel like I'm wasting time, but then other days I don't really think about it, I just go take a walk around downtown, or find a hiking trail or something, and just wander around and take pictures of whatever looks interesting. To be honest, most of them come out to be crap (usually 90-95%), but I'll usually come out with a couple to a few that I like, depending on the day.

My suggestion's to just find one particular function of your camera, or some particular technique, and take at least a few hours to experiment with it. You could try experimenting with HDR (though in my experience the post-processing is almost always a pain), or maybe light painting. Just grab a flashlight or an LED, cut the lights, and try drawing something. I don't know, that might not sound that great to you, but I always just find that finding a particular something to work on gets me back interested pretty quickly. One cool thing is to buy a cheap $5 reverse ring mount at a camera shop, and mount your lens on backwards -- do some macro photography!

Don't judge yourself too harshly, either, you've got some great stuff in your Flickr album. It's always really easy to get overcritical with your own work. The more you learn, the more flaws you can see.

Oh, and as for setting PPI? Don't mess with it, it won't make a difference unless you're specifying your output size in something other than pixels. For example, if you were exporting into a page layout program, and you wanted a 5" wide photo at 300ppi, you could set that, and it would export at 1,500 pixels wide. It's just a conversion factor, really. If you're picking your export size in pixels, it won't matter.

[faeriegodess612]

Thanks Bruce,...as for the program, I have PSE9.

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

As I understand it, P&S cameras do more to the image in camera in terms of processing the jpg, whereas unless you set the DSLR to do it, it won't. Hence feeling flat and dull.

As far as not being able to get the composition and framing you'd like, how is that the problem of the hardware? If you don't have a longer zoom, use your feet and get closer. If It's something you can't get closer to, find something else to work on.

Take up a project or something. What do you even want out of your photography?

I don't know what I want out of it anymore. I used to really enjoy it, and now it seems more a huge disappointment. I think part of my problem is that I really want to go and enjoy it again, but since I like to do nature photography, and its been so bloody hot here lately, I havent wanted to go anywhere. So, I think I need to find a way to practice more inside. But I seem to have no creativity when it comes to doing things inside, and I'd be doing it in a very "ghetto" way. I think I'm going to take some things that I just learned from the Kelby book that I've gotten recently, and try some stuff indoors. Maybe this will spark my creative fires again,...idk,...I sure as hell hope so,...cuz I really want to get back to enjoying this.


Thanks Kevin. I appreciate all that. I'll try the resizing some stuff without messing with the PPI. I think thats why some stuff on my Flickr looks so pixelated.

[nickbedford]

You know you like nature photography as you've said, and I think the best thing alongside getting out there and shooting is to look at the kind of quality of photography you want to strive for.

For example, in this shot (linked randomly from Google):

http://www.deshow.net/d/file/travel/...hy-2-504-2.jpg

What do you think is the reason why it's a fantastic "nature" photograph? I can list a few things.

• Vertical symmetry pertaining to the smaller creak branching off away from the camera.
• Contrast and vibrant colours and deep shadows (this is done in post using the development settings)
• The creek itself sits on roughly the bottom third line which helps to balance with the trees and whatnot in the background.
• The long exposure has made the water become silky smooth.
• The framing gives you a great feeling of depth in the scene by showing you both the closeness of the creek and the darkening forest away at the top of the photo. It's framed so that there is an effective "horizon", if you will, where the actual trees begin away in the scene.

If you're like me, the best way you'll learn is by figuring out what makes up a fantastic photograph that you admire.

And if this works for you, look at lots of great photos. I can't stress this enough. Essentially, you need to know why you're not getting the results you want. Dive into the photos you admire and figure out what makes them shine and then use this when you're doing your own experimentation.

I'm constantly analysing what could be improved in my photos and why. I'm constantly looking at other photographer's work and figuring out what I love and don't love about the photos.

Look through this Google Image Search and try to figure out exactly that.

[ravncat]

I totally hit that when i went from point and shoot to dslr...

P+s = automatically high saturated, highly sharpened, high contrast images via jpg engine on camera. It also means lots of depth of field and little control over depth of field. Fairly limited in ISO (was the truth before) Lastly, small size, means easier to hold at crazy positions and angles.

Dslr (especially nikon) = flatter, less sharpening, less contrast. (doubletime for raw, not sure about the newer basic jpg settings for nikons, but was true of the old d70 jpgs) Easy to get shallow depth of field. Shot discipline and technique become more visible. Tend to have a bigger ISO range. Large size - means it`s easier to just shoot at eye level all the time... Don`T forget to get away from eye level.

That`s the basics. We adapt to shooting with the DSLR - but we tend to take alot of things that the point and shoot is doing for granted. be conscious of those changes. A DSLR is alot like losing your training wheels when getting on a bicycle,
Keep shooting. You`ll get through the transition period.

I don`t think a new lens will help as much as practice processing and paying more attention to lighting. if you shoot jpg, you could try putting sharpness, contrast and saturation up a bit in the in camera settings. If you shoot raw - just add more in. Nikon seems to know that its easier to add contrast/saturation than remove it. Their defaults are not optimal for SOOC shots.

Also - the depth of field thing - many times, having alot in focus is good and beneficial - how often are you shooting at small apertures? like f16 and f22? And how often are you shooting with higher ISOs? (lower iso = not only less noise but also more dynamic range).

[BryanC]

What's been your method for resizing to post on Flickr? Looking at some of your exif infos, they are showing image sizes of 160x120. This is very, very small. If you are resizing to these dimensions and uploading to Flickr, then setting your largest image size on Flickr to 600 on the longest side, it is blowing up a very, very small image, causing the pixelation. If you want your Flickr images to be 600 on the longest side as your largest size on Flickr, make your copy of your original, and resize it to that size (600 on longest side) and upload to Flickr.

[nickbedford]

For Facebook, you want to export to 720px on the long side. That's the max size of Facebook photos. I get great results using the native size of Facebook photos.

[BryanC]

Originally Posted by nickbedford

For Facebook, you want to export to 720px on the long side. That's the max size of Facebook photos. I get great results using the native size of Facebook photos.

I guess I was using the 600 size as an example since it was the size she was using for the images I looked at on her Flickr.

Not having too much Facebook experience and I think I have heard a few times that Facebook does some sort of different compression or something, is the 720 max size a pretty decent quality for viewing?