Home Forums Gear Photography point and shoot

Any help in making better pictures would be appreciated, I am new to the Digital camera thing, or any camera thing for that fact. thanks
Max

I have a Cannon A620 with 7.1 megapixal, and would like some help in making better shots.Max

Well, real basic is the rule of thirds. Your main subject should not be in the middle of the picture. It should be offset by 1/3 left or right, and/or 1/3 up and down.

Then there's a bit of cropping, which I did here with your picture...



Same with the caribou picture... why all the sky?

I can see that now.. way to much other stuff in the picture. the sky etc. so your subject should not be in the center huh? makes sense. thanks.
Max

Nice pic Max. I wonder where that is? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

The biggest problem with the caribou is the blood. I suggest that you throw some snow over it and wipe off the nose.
The white flashbulb eye problem can be handled in several ways. Before I got a digital and learned to use Photoshop to fix them, I would put anything I could find over the eyeball to keep from reflecting the flash. You can carry a small piece of cloth or black paper, wipe some mud on it, find a dark leaf to put under the eyelids, etc. I even used a felt marker to blacken the eyeball on prints.

Dick

thanks you guys for the help, Cleaning up the animal is a great idea, people don't like to see the effects of bullet trauma.. Covering the eyes with something also.. good.
Ironbender,, I saw some of your pictures of Mt Redoubt from the beach you took earlier this fall.. very nice.. I don't know how to make those effects like you did with the grass in the foreground etc.

Good advice from BW.

Now for a couple things that go along with that.
If your frame is properly composed (1/3's rule),
in many shots this will render your auto focus useless.

Get away from depending on automatic settings for exposure and focus when you can. Play with the settings a little, try the same shot with a few different exposure settings. Often with outdoor shots the cameras sensors will shut out too much light due to the amount of bright sky's, water or snow in a frame. The results are gray snow or blacked out subjects in the photo you may have wanted to see more detail in. The same goes on the flip side, If most of whats in your frame is dark and the subject in the frame is say...a white bird, the bird will come out over exposed and show little to no detail. Change your exposure so the camera gathers less light. If you take three or four pictures of the same subject and then see one of them came out just the way you wanted it to, look at the exif data for that shot and see where your settings were and make a mental note of it.
I use to have to keep written note of this in my 35mm days. It's a great learning tool to have this data embedded in digital photos for reference.

A couple things about your caribou photo...
I hate flash photography, especially in outdoor photos.
It's personal preference, but it never looks natural.
In this shot you could have let a little more light in the photo but it may have required a tripod to hold the camera steady if it was really shooting slow.
Great deal, getting the photo before you popped the gut. Gutted critter photos sorta look like balloons with half the air let out of them, but take the time to kick the blood out of the area. I have never seen a trophy shot where blood offered a positive enhancement effect, same goes with a tongue hanging out of a animals mouth in a photo, stuff it back in or cut it off.
There is nothing wrong with doing a little staging for these kinda shots.
As long as I am harping on dead animal photos, watch how you hold those horns, don't wrap your hand all the way around them (unless its just flippin huge), I think you could have supported that caribous head for the photo by hanging on the the left ear in this shot and let more of the horn show. For composure in this shot, I'd of rather seen the caribous feet in the photo and less sky.

In one photography class I took, the instructor said that you should never have objects in a scenery photo that protruded above the horizon. Looking at the mountain scene you posted here, I just don't know how well that holds true.
I suppose most all of these things are just personal opinion but I might have tried taking the same photo with and without the tree tops above the horizon..

Using something other than auto features is always a good thing, but is is possible to use the auto to achieve the 1/3's rule. Point the camera directly at what you want to have focused. Press the shutter half way, then turn the camera to the composition (without lifting your finger) and press the shutter release button the rest of the way. It's a handy feature when you have two people in the picture, focus on one of them, then turn the camera so they are both in the camera equally.

Additionally, some cameras have a feature allowing the focus point to be somewhere other than in the middle of the lens. It can be moved to several other places, but this requires a certain setting. Mine is such that if you continue to press the shutter release button a few times (half way), each time moves where in the frame the camera will focus.

For those beautiful landscape shots, such as the one you posted, a graduated neutral density filter will help. It will darken the sky, but not the lower part of your picture. They are typically used on SLRs, but can be hand held in front of a point and shoot.

M

My Panasonic camera has that feature, It just seems to aggravate me when I try and use it. I have to admit, I never gave it much of a chance though.

The half click deal for focus is good but often on close-ups I find I need to refocus after moving the camera.

I think we hashed this subject around a year or so ago here.
It's always humored me to see the people that spend ton's of $'s on camera gear and then post images that appear to have come from a cheap Instamatic camera due to never learning how to use their gear except in auto mode.

Exactly.. I feel like I have a fairly nice little camera with a bozo behind the buttons.. I so much enjoy your help here. It takes time and understanding to make good pictures.
Miss treated, I have a ring that comes off my lense so I can add lenses. I will find out what I can put on for added effects
Thanks
max

Max-
The grass foreground was just that. Clever, eh? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> I try to imagine what the whole picture will look like and not totally focus on the main object.

I had taken a few pics from the beach at the mountains 30 miles across the inlet (as you know) and wasn't satisfied. I thought I'd add some forground "interest" and just sat in the cold sand to frame what I wanted the photo to look like.

This is a bit stark, but I liked the colors and silhouette.


This is a little "softer", and if I could edit and crop, I'd take out alot of the dark foreground and the sky to the seed heads on the grass. With my camera those had to be included in order to capture both Iliamna and Redoubt


A photo can sometimes be made more interesting by avoiding the 1/3 rule and drawing the eye away from the center, but not always.

The zoom can bring an object closer ro view, but I like to use it mostly to "frame" the elements I want to include in the photo and exclude the rest.

Keep taking pictures and see what your eye appreciates.

alaskacanoe,

If you have the interest and desire to learn more about taking better photos, you're halfway there. The very first thing I would suggest is to study your owner's manual carefully until you're very familiar with the features and operation of the camera. I can't emphasize that enough.

There are many good books and other resources available that will help you to understand how to compose a good photo and to manage the light. If you don't have any "help" manuals, this site is a good starting point for the beginning photographer:

Photoworkshop Photo 101

This area in particular may be most helpful:

Digital Photography Simplified

today I shot this one from the OSK dock looking out on cook inlet at the platforms that I used to spend half my life on..

Kenai river flats, some steam coming off the river, I was one minute late from getting some sun in the picture.. I am trying to understand the 1/3 rule,, so let me know what I need to do.
Thanks

Elf, thanks for the pointer on getting that little box right where you want it to focus, You can see that I moved the box from the sticky one one shot, and then the next shot put the macro box focus on the tape and can. wow,, it is really cool how clear it makes it. Thanks. [img] [image]http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g256/alaskacanoe/Jan2007012.jpg[/img]

I've seen that OSK view a few times. Is the flats pic from the bridge access pullout?

The shot of the docks is a good one.

i know about the 1/3 rule and i know about a lot of other rules. i have also devoted a large part of my life devoted to breaking the rules.

to me "can't has always meant won't" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

my advice to you, though it could hardly be summed up in such a tiny space, would be concentrate on taking a great shot. the rule of 1/3 is a minor part of that.

instead, i would work on the 4 c's

clear, concise, complete, correct.

just as in writing or speaking, the major thought should be "consider your audience"

the first audience is YOU! if YOU like it, it's great shot! the next audience you will try to impress will be groups of others. people fond of still lifes often times will not have the same interests, concerns or requirements of a particular shot as wildlife afficianados, or even each other.

beauty is in the eye of the beholder <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />