Cup overflowing

[DukeDillard]

I took this around noon on a sunny 16 day. I used a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT at a focal length of 30 (18-55 lens), f-stop = 20, Exposure time: 1/800. I had it set to Program (P) so these are the numbers it chose. I cropped it a bit. I am interested in ways to deal with the washed out color that came from the bright sun and how to make the water more dramatic. Also, any help with making the fountain stand out better against the background. As is clear, I'm sure, I'm new to this. I would prefer not to spend hours on the computer editing, i.e. to make the picture better to begin with and do minimal editing to get what I want. Maybe that is not possible?

[Jun Xiang Goh]

Hii DukeDillard,
you have done a really great job on the perspective and composition! But yea the background is too sharp in focus that it distracts the viewers. From your camera settings of 1/800 f20 i guess you have used the highest ISO value that is 1600 right? Usually during sunny day ISO 100 or 200 is already enough unless you are shooting some sport events where you need really fast shutter speed.

Using low ISO means less noise on your photo, and the aperture size can be set bigger (lower f-value). This give you a shallow depth of field (you will have a nice blur on the background, or in simple word bokeh). However, the lens you are using can only give you a maximum aperture size of f3.5 which is still not enough to produce a nice bokeh, so now you need to do more. Step backwards and zoom your lens to the maximum at 55mm. Now you can see the difference! Have a good try

[milosh]

Hello and welcome,


first of all, watch out for your ISO! Even though you haven't stated it here, I can see that your camera was set to ISO1600. If you used ISO100, you would need f4 or f5.6 for equivalent exposure, which would give you shallower depth of field, making it possible to isolate the subject. Or, you could have used ISO100 and say, f22, which would give you a shutter speed of around 1/60, making it possible to show water movement. One more thing you can do in order to isolate the fountain is to position yourself further away from it and use a longer focal length. This would further reduce your depth of field.

[DukeDillard]

Thank you so much for that helpful advice. I'll try it next time I go to that fountain. I had forgotten about the ISO setting as I had been in some caves recently and tried to get the ISO as high as possible since flash was not allowed. I had forgotten to reset it. I need to get the T2i (best I can afford). I'll try some different lenses as well. Now, I have a better place to begin. Grateful that you took the time to help.