Sun Set

[lazawal09]

Camera : Nikon Coolpix L100
f stop : 1 / 10.8
Exposure Time : 1/ 412 sec
ISO : 80
Focal Length : 180 mm
Max Apperture : 3.6
35 mm focal length : 994
Digital Zoom : 2.4
Metering Mode : Spot

(To my dismay i dont know any of this mentioned above, Camera never prompted me for anything like this...just did it by itself)

What i intended was to have tree leaves also appear clear and from with in the leaves i could capture the sun set. Made an effort
Now the sun is across the valley and tree is on home side of the valley
Valley is very wide.
Please tell me what all to correct... critique required and so guide me also on those mathematical figures above my camera has this written on the lense 5.0 - 75 mm 1:3.5- 5.4 15 x times optical zoom.....Does my camera has more capabilities than what i did with it?

[neoHUNTER]

Im not good with sunset photos but this works for me, the foliage creates a sillhouette to the sun and it looks like in a karate movie hehe. Let me explain a bit of those values, to my very best knowledge.

f stop : 1 / 10.8 - aperture/the bigger the value the smaller the opening of your lens. You experiment and compare the value, you can find changes in the depth of field of the image.

Exposure Time : 1/ 412 sec - shutter speed/the time you allow the light to come inside your camera. The slower the value, more time of light to go inside...get a better exposure.

ISO : 80 - sensitivity to light. the lower your iso the more lesser noise is your image but with less iso it is also less sensitivity to light. To enhance the exposure of your image during night, you can use higher ISO but again some camera will give noises. Noises in image is like a dotted pixels.

Focal Length : 180 mm - thats what you use in your lens.

Metering Mode : Spot - you camera is taking the light level reading usually only few portion from the scene and usually the middle part and it will balance your aperture and shutter speed.

Hope this helps...

[navcom]

Hi Lazawa. Your composition looks pretty good but as you say it's out of focus and a bit hard to see things clearly. There are a couple things your camera settings have done to make it out of focus.

First, lets talk about the concept of "depth of field". DOF is how much of your image is in focus from front to back. There are two things that can control DOF. The first is your aperture setting (that f/number thingy). This is how you set how much light enters your lens. The smaller the f/number, the larger the lens opening, and the larger the f/number, the smaller the opening. DOF is the least at the largest opening and the greatest at the smallest opening. Therefore, if you want more DOF, you would use a smaller aperture (larger number). This works to a point. As you get close to the smallest opening, the image quality will suffer and your image will appear soft and slightly out of focus. So for starters, use a range somewhere between f/8 and f/13 for the best combination of DOF and quality.

The second thing that controls DOF is your focal length (you probably think of this as "zoom"). The closer you zoom in on something, the less DOF you will have. You have a setting of 180mm. This is pretty close and by default, you will have very little DOF in your image. It will be pretty much impossible to get both the sun and the tree branches in focus at the same time at this focal length.

My recommendation to you is to turn off all the automatic stuff...auto focus, auto exposure. Then set your ISO (film speed), aperture, and shutter speed manually and use your manual focus (if you have one). But before you do this, learn what each of these settings will do for you. The best place to learn that is from a little study (here on the forum, do a search for exposure basics), or from a book (I recommend Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson). I can't stress how important learning basic exposure techniques is. You need to learn to walk before you can run.

Hope that helps!

[lazawal09]

Thnk you, infact this is wat i need. some one telling me to atleast walk...the only point was; from where to start walking..and you have quite aptly explained it to me...at times i think my Canon A-1 with tele and zoom lense was quite good as compared to my this piece of s.... may b coz i dont know wat can it do. there is no manual thing in this some one told me to download software into it to get more settings. any way tx a lot its a great help to start understanding
Lazawal