English Plaintain

[Faith Huddleston]

Taken early one morning with my Kodak Z981. I just got it and am trying to learn how to do the settings manually, so i had it on manual, selected ISO of 65, shutter speed of 1/8 sec and Aperture of f5.00, with a Focal Length of 23.60. Also selected Daylight as light source and no flash. It is a picture of a pot of English Plaintain that I have in my yard. When I walked outside early in the morning,it just grabbed my attention in an almost geometric way (although I am not really mathematically minded at all) and the way the light and dark green was justapositioned appealed to me. Did I capture that well or could I have tried another set of settings that would have done better? Up until now I have been using a Kodak C613 which is a small point and shoot. Any advice or direction woudl be greatly appreciated.

Faith

[Krusty79]

The colors look a bit flat to me, like this was shot when it was overcast. Was that the case? Also, the leaves don't look really sharp. Did you use a tripod? Or have you sharpened the image yet?

[milosh]

Hello Faith,

I can see what caught your attention in this pot, but we often find ourselves (even the experienced ones) in a situation where we would want to capture something and show it to others, but when we try to do it, we realise it's not so easy. Something that looks very special to us may seem like a photo that could be taken anywhere to others. Our eyes work different than cameras, and learning how your camera sees and how it will transfer something to a photo (ie. how something will look) is a crucial part of the learning process, and a tough one.

That said, besides the minor technical flaws that Krusty here already pointed out, I wanted to say that you should try to find subjects which are more interesting and appealing, and also, try to put your subjects in a context (in their natural environment, usually). To take your photo as an example, someone looking at it doesn't know it's a pot plant, it could be any piece of ground found anywhere. I hope you understand what I mean and you won't take this as a harsh critique. These are only some points for you to look at in future when you're out and shooting. Good luck and keep practicing (and posting here of course)!

[Faith Huddleston]

I do not take your criticism as harsh, but as helpful and supportive. After second look, you are correct, the leaves are not as sharp as I thought (well, I am sixty and do wear glasses ). I did not use a tri-pod as I don't have one, yet. Am looking at one and it is on my list to get. It was early morning (about 6:30 or 7 am) and no I haven't tried sharpening it yet. As far as subject matter, you are correct again in that it probably isn't something that would interest everyone. However, I went ahead and posted it here for input as I have just gotten this camera and am trying to learn how to set shutter speed, aperture and ISO. The last camera I used was a Kodak C613 and all I had to do was set ISO, and light source and the camera took care of everything else. I am taking my photography to the next level for me and would like to improve my pictures. Appreciate any input you guys can give me and yes, I will continue posting. Then you can see where I started and let me know if I am improving at all.

Again, thanks for the help and suggestions.

Faith

[Krusty79]

Shooting at 1/8 of a second hand held is going to produce blurry shots. For most folks, the slowest shutter speed they can shoot hand held is about 1/30 of a second. If you don't have a tripod yet, you can try boosting the ISO to give you a faster shutter speed. You should eventually get a good tripod, though.

Also, as LeeR said, digital images are soft by nature and need sharpening. I've read that images also need to be sharpened after resizing them. Just don't overdo it to the point where it looks fake or you start to get halos.

The angle of the sun changes throughout the day, so the light hitting the plant will change throughout the day as well. I would take another look at the light hitting the plant in the late afternoon to see if you can get some nice golden sunlight reflecting off the leaves.

Keep shooting!