Comments please and fix the photo if not right

10/09/2005 10:39:06 AM · #1

I had a bowl of apples sitting by my kitchen windown and I grabbed the camera to try to hone my skills in editing. Now, I have a bad habit of centering things and wondering if this was a bit better off centering.

the original

Edited version

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

10/09/2005 10:58:05 AM · #2

Hi. Can you post camera information for this please? Thanks. I wonder if you are shooting at F6 or narrower on this. There seems to be focus and a general lack of detail.

Please remember that all the big zoom cameras can only handle going to about F5.0 before losing a significant amount of fineness in the detail. This is a result of what is called Diffraction limitation if you want to read up more about it.

It is also possible that you have shot this with your in-camera sharpening turned down a lot, at which point you need to put some USM on it.

Yes I do realize that it is possible you didn't really worry about the focus on the picture because you had a different purpose in mind, but I thought it would be helpful information. Another thing to mention is that the apples are fairly reflective and sometimes autofocus is thrown off by that.

As far as your composition is concerned, it's not too bad, I would like to see a little wider on the sides myself, mostly for thirds on the reflections and the dimple on the apple. On the other hand, my sister who has taken art class and knows a lot more about composition than I says she likes the composition as is because of the use of light and dark in opposite areas.

I wonder if you had taken the apples out of the collander if you could have had a different sort of picture?

Apple iPhone 5

10/09/2005 11:01:20 AM · #3

Removed.

Message edited by author 2005-10-09 11:18:17.

10/09/2005 11:11:31 AM · #4

Exposure 1/20
F number 7.1
Max aperture f/3.2
ISO 200

10/09/2005 12:03:02 PM · #5

Ok, Definitely a few things you could do differently with this shot. For starters, if your shutter speed is 1/20, your camera shouldn't have been using F7.1. Max aperture refers you your camera specifications, not current aperture. The F number is your aperture. My S2 starts to lose fine detail at around f4.5 or f5.0 Your camera will as well, perhaps even more so due to the even smaller pixels. I wish camera manufacturers would get off this idea and make some cameras that have slightly bigger sensors and stick with reasonable pixel numbers. My camera would be 2x better if it was an 8x with 4.0mp. Better pictures from the ground up.

You definitely could benefit from a reshoot.

Lose the collander, shoot the apples with more light. Throw some light diffusion on your window or use some bounced light to decrease the light variance from highlight to shadow.

Set your camera to AV and shoot as wide as possible, I usually like f3.5-f4.0 on my camera.

And for goodness' sake, when you can control your light, please please shoot in ISO 50 or 100. Grab a nice big peice of white cardboard or reflective plastic, even a sheet of plastic covered with aluminum foil (non-shiny side out) will do a decent job of bouncing light back in to the scene. On the kitchen theme, not having many things available, I'd probably go with the biggest cereal box I could find, open it up and tape some thing to straighten the folds and give it rigidity. Then, keeping it as flat as possible, tape some aluminum foil to it trying your best not to get any wrinkles. You can keep it hanging around between your fridge and whatever is next to it to keep it straight for next time too.

The picture may be suffering from motion blur as well. I can't say for sure, but it is soft. At 1/20th at wide open, you will still notice motion blur unless you are REALLY steady. When you said that your max aperture was 3.2, that tells me that you were zoomed in a bit, and I don't know how much (the Z6 has an Max aperture range of 2.8-4.5). If you were zoomed in significantly, you could possibly increase camera shake. Anti-Shake or not.

The rule of thumb without anti-shake is 1/focal length. Your lens has a focal range of 36-420mm. That means that at 420mm (fully zoomed in), you will need to have a shutter speed around 1/400th to keep hand-shake from making your picture lose sharpness. at 36mm, you will need around 1/40th. Shaky hands or carelessness OR shooting using the LCD instead of the viewfinder will change those numbers quite a bit. Antishake helps, but is not perfect.

If you were shooting about double your native focal length, say perhaps 80mm, you would need to keep the camera relatively still when shooting at 1/80th, and this would give you a picture quite free of camera-shake. With AS on, you would likely be able to get away with 2 stops down from that, or about 1/30. That having been said, this is running the very limit of what that camera can do, so it is also very likely that it will take about 3 shots before you get one that gets it right. And hold your breath! Shooting at 35mm at 1/30th is generally considered risky, even with anti-shake. Shooting 80mm at 1/30th is ok according to the optimistic manual, but is unlikely to give you good consistent results in the real world.

Still life shots are often taken with tripods. In this case, switch to 2 second autotimer and turn your anti-shake off. You should get nice results like that.

I hope it helps. I'm not one who is really good with his camera yet, but I have a bit of experience shooting with a similar camera to yours.

I NEVER shoot anything I care about at an aperture beyond 5.0 anymore. If I need more DOF, I have to find a different way. If it is too bright, I will be getting a polarizer and some ND filters. You might consider the same.

10/09/2005 01:07:48 PM · #6

Here's the re-shoot of the apples any better?

10/09/2005 10:10:15 PM · #7

Much, much better. The light makes all the difference.

Please don't forget to post all the shooting information, particularly what the light sources were.

It still looks like you have a softness issue. I can't tell if its in ISO or bad diffraction softness. Try shooting this at F3.5 or F4 if you haven't already. Better yet, just for yourself, shoot on a range of apertures.

Now see what element or elements you can place on a third. This composition is a lot better, but still has room to grow.

Try placing some white paper underneath and see how that works.

Want an example of truly stunning composition and lighting?

Woah.

10/09/2005 10:22:35 PM · #8

lighting was the light from my kitchen window, halogen lights under the cabinet, and a diffused flash

1/4, iso 100, f/4.0