New toy and probably stupid question Forums

mhaze

I've played with the photo now. I had to reset black and white points and have increased the saturation. I dodged the shadows to keep the detail.

I think it's probably over saturated a tad particularly the green.

If you keep getting pics like this have a look at the histogram and play with the black/white points first and then perhaps add a very small amout of saturation.

The shot from the camera is probably spot on and the lack of punch in the grass due to highlights on the grass, was the grass wet? just a thought a polaroid filter would cure this

Mick

geraldandannie · Moderator

Hi Mick

That's just about spot on. The grass was dry, but very green (not the sort of dried-out pale green you get in the middle of summer with no water).

Do you think it would have been worth doing the half shutter press thing pointing at the grass, to get that correctly exposed? I suppose then the fence would be too dark, with no detail.

Gerald

mhaze

Trying for spot exposure would indeed loose info from other parts of the pic. You could try averaging several spot exposure bbut (now I've developed a stutter!) using some form of post processing is easier.

The light was shining on the grass which is very shiny and the highlights were changing the overall colour of the grass. The camera isn't capable of understanding this and fails to compensate, not much you can do really.

With digital cameras I'm very wary of bright noonday light as the dynamic range of most digital sensors is far less than the human eye and it's easy to wash out highlights.

Mick

litcher

I bought one of these on eBay yesterday and picked it up today. Very Happy

It's so long since I used our old film SLR that I think I've forgotten what little I knew. So you ask all the stupid questions Gerald and I'll watch for the answers. That way nobody will know and I might look intelligent. Wink

Viv

geraldandannie · Moderator

silversurfa

Focus ? pics not in focus / keep camera still . and focus and hold shutter then reframe ,

LazyRover

Gerald

If you want to eventually move away from the predefined shooting selection and use Manual, Aperture Priority (AV) or Shutter Priority (TV) then you might consider buying this excellent book on

geraldandannie · Moderator

Thanks for those suggestions, LazyRover.

I need to have a good play with the settings and taking the same shots with different settings. That's one of the great things about digital - you can look at the pictures afterwards, and find out what settings you used to get them - no notebooks or keeping track of which shot is which.

Is there anything else I should think of buying (I hope Annie doesn't read this Embarassed

). I don't think I can run to a different lens yet - the standard Canon EFS one will have to do for a while. I see lots of photographers with lens hoods - are these a good buy?

I bought a 2GB card with it, and I'll be able to get a spare card or two to stick in the gadget bag.

For the moment, I'll be taking photos from where we happen to be (as opposed to going out specifically to take photos), so I'm not looking to get too deep into this lark just yet - RAW is probably out for the moment.

As always, any helpful advice on setting myself up will be gratefully (and graciously) received.

Gerald