Phototalk - ask a question or explain stuff about photography

[sean]

here's my spider pic, taken with my humble Cannon A590, just a macro point and shoot with a little control over the focal point (the green square).

 

Comments please, it seems my DOF and focal point is not great??? -but these where moving targets, so not much time to fart with settings...

 

F3.5, shutter speed 1/60", ISO80

 

Can't find my fugi pics right now :-( but great thread, I've discovered new functions on my camera, I can't pretend I fully understand them, but I can do a bit of slightly educated trial and error... before I had some success with using low ISO and adjusting shutter speed, hope I'll get some improved results with adjusting the other settings.

 

f3.5 is never going to give you good depth of field......the lower the f.stop the less DOF

[Albedo]

I haven’t posted for a while but have been going absolutely mental on studying photography, so I can’t post all that I’ve been up to. Nice to have a new bit of input in the thread Flames, and this is how it will be most useful… with people asking stuff. I was never really qualified to be the teacher here but am happy to share the pain of learning.

 

It seems that I/We have been playing with the ‘exposure triangle’ which has at its corners

 

Aperture – which also affects Depth of field (as sean has pointed out)

ISO- which also affects image noise, detailed and sharp to soft and grainy

Shutter Speed – which also affects motion blur.

 

Whilst what Sean says is true, I think you have motion blur going on with the wee spider critters, so you need a faster shutter speed. To keep a correct exposure at the higher speed you can either up the ISO a bit or open the aperture. You don’t want to open the aperture (going to smaller F numbers) as you're at the narrow end of DOF already so you would need to up the ISO and perhaps the F stop to get more DOF which the higher ISO will allow.

 

Good that you gave your settings Flames and my verdict is that your ISO at 80 was too low for a moving subject, I’d go to 400 and this will give you more scope for Aperture too, in that you can choose a smaller one and get more DOF.

 

I’m doing everything on manual at the moment which really teaches you how one thing affects another. My advice is, to not be afraid of the dreaded ‘M’ on the dial, but use it as a beginner to see what everything does. You should see an exposure meter of some digital kind which tells you when you have it right.

[Albedo]

Here's a link which has helped me in my learning of this painful stuff.

 

Basic Photo Tips: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO - photo.net

[flames]

Thanks for the quick replies!

 

That advice should particularly help me get better results from hand held/moving target shots.

 

If I get chance, I'll have an experiment this weekend.

 

Cheers.

[Recceboy]

Last week i purchased a new 18-200mm lense for my Nikon D60 and wanted to get some filters for it. I found www.cameratonic.co.uk to be the best on price as to what i was after and the package was delivered within 3 days. In the packaging was a voucher offer for 5% off. Coupon Number EB15NOV2010 Expiry: 15 Nov 2010 so i thought i would share it here.

[John Hancock]

This week I bought myself some new glass (70-200, 2.8vr). This means my 70-300vr is surplus to requirements, it’s a Nikon fit and in pristine condition with all boxes, covers etc.. I’ll post some pictures over the weekend if anyone’s interested.

[markiesla]

I would thoroughly recommend The Digital Photography Book: The Step-by-step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros'!: ISBN-13: 978-0321474049.

 

My wife bought me this for our wedding anniversary. A great read, humourous and what I really liked was the easy language - almost as if you were sitting having a pint with the author. He doesn't go into the technical theory bits but simply - you want a photo like this? set you camera this way etc....

 

Happy reading

[Albedo]

My secret weapon, the mini, rock solid, go anywhere do most things, stealth tripod....

 

- fully extended (and out of focus)

- lowest setting (centre column detaches)

- head mounted upside down, gets camera to the floor (but upside down). I haven't done this yet as I use a bean bag for ground level stuff, but it needs checking out at some point.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Im finding ISO is the lazy mans tripod these days!

[Albedo]

that would be a trISOd.............I'll get my coat:vroam: