Hi, top too are not that sharp. Are you using a compact on full zoom, by any chance? Like the chicken though, it really fills the pic with bright colour.
no i'm using a canon eos 350d with a tamron 28-300mm lens i must admit the chicken is one of my favorites because of the way the colour just catches my eye everytime i look at it but that is my personal taste.
OK with a zoom range like that, I'm guessing it is fairly soft at the long end when wide open. You need to try to maintain about f8/11 if you can for sharpness. I would expect rather better feather detail. The calf looks like it has a bit of movement too.
Right Cat. you need to learn a little about shutter speeds, apertures and lens focal lengths if you are ever to understand why your shots keep turning out "soft" or "out of focus". Basically, the lens you have on your camera is an absolutely terrible lens for a beginner because it covers a very wide focal length from 28mm to 300mm (aprox 45mm to 480mm equivalent on your APS size sensor DSLR) and you'd have been much better off with two separate lenses of 17-55mm and 50mm to 200mm instead. The 17-55 for "general out and about shooting" and the 50-200 for "telephoto" shots. The reason the 28-300 is so bad is that the more you use the lens towards the telephoto end (towards the 300mm end) the more difficult it becomes to hand hold (not using a tripod). the 28-300 mm also refers to the focal length when the lens is on a 35mm film camera and NOT on a digital SLR like yours when the focal length becomes 45mm to 480mm due to the crop factor of the digital SLR sensor. To prevent camera shake you need to try and maintain a shutter speed which is roughly equivalent to the focal length you are using at the time.........thus.........if your camera is at the wide end of the focal length (45mm) then you need to be aiming for a shutter speed of aprox 1/45th of a second. Your camera probably won't have that actual speed so you need to aim for 1/60th of a second (which it will have) in order to be able to hand hold the shot without inducing "camera shake" which causes soft focus and blur. At the long (telephoto) end of the lens (480mm) you need to be aiming for a shutter speed of 1/480th of a second and again, because your camera won't have that speed you need to aim for the next highest speed which will be 1/500th of a second in order to prevent camera shake and blur at that focal length. If you remember this "rule of thumb" it will go a long way in helping you understand the importance of using the correct shutter speed to prevent blur at the focal length at which you are shooting. No doubt this will all be terribly confusing to you but if you are to progress in photography then it really is worthwhile getting to grips with these basic principles in order for you to progress and understand what makes a good photograph. BigWill
thankyou so much for all that i will probably be writing it down so i can keep reminding myself i really want to get better at this and love taking pictures of animals good job too as i live in the country surounded by the river tay and farms i have some water shots but not sure if i am getting it right with them i have used my tripod for most of those ones though i only have this lens as i got a cracking deal and it came with the camera as a local shop had it sitting for so long
I like them all, the chicken one in particular. The colours are eye-catching and whilst I actually have no idea about the theory of photography (yet!) I think it is composed well fills the area perfectly.
....another good tip for when photographing anything, be it human or animal which has an "eye"..................try above all to get the actual "eye" sharp and in focus...............it doesn't matter if the rest of the image is soft or out of focus............if the eye of the animal or human is sharp and in focus then it will succeed as a photograph...........that's where the chicken shot falls down.........the eye is unsharp..................trust me on this! BigWill
You might be able to fix it on the computer. I'd have a bit more space in front of the beak to reduce the effect of the chicken looking out of the photograph.
I know what Will means, but I think the chicken is just too far out overall to save with sharpening the eye. More to the point, following his advice so she doesn't have to will achieve more. Photoshop is not really for saving things. I said in another post that if I had my way, there'd be a warning on all long compact zooms that they are completely useless for taking photographs. I'd add one to SLR telephotos as well saying a) buy a wide-angle first, and b) use your legs to walk closer. Must say mine had cobwebs on it when I got it out over Xmas. I try never to use longer than the 108mm (in old money) of my standard zoom. But then I don't do seagulls.
Hi Cat, I love the first shot .. it has emotion/humour -- a really annoyed (appearing) cow looking a fowl who has, apparantly, ran afoul rolleyes of the cow. Whilst it (the shot) may not be technically perfect (focus, perhaps a tad too tightly cropped), I believe far off the focus issue may be due to --<u> and this is pure hypothesis on my part </u>-- to the fact that the photographer may have been shooting through a fence and I think it is fence that is softness line across the image at the cows nose(?). In deference to the previous posters critiques, the picture is not tack sharp (which all photogs - me more than anyone -should strive for) but I still really the image for reasons stated at the beginning. Cheers, Jack
hi everyone thankyou all so much for your comments i will take it all on board. I agree about the picture of my daughter the image could have a much better crop and you were right she was climbing in the original you can see my husband trying to get her and i was taking the picture of the cow through a wire fence not aloud in the field due to the other cow having a temper again thankyou all for your comments.
