What could I have done differently

[photo101]

I was trying to show the emphasize the massive amount of yellow flowers over the distant hills...I am just not sure I got the right look tho. Seems too out of focus in general. Any suggestions? Thanks

Nikon N80
50mm 1.8D @1.8
ND -4
Kodak 400HD

[Peter_AUS]

Jared,

Try a greater depth of field on your lens aperture, f/22 would be a good start. If you have infinity then set it at that, and you should get a better image than you got here.

[Norman]

Hi Jared,

Must have been a beautiful site to see all that colour, if you have a wide angle lens, that gives a lot more depth of field, giving you the choice of having the close foreground in focus as well as the distant hills.

Or you could of chosen to closley focus on the fore ground blooms & let the more distant blooms & hills go out of focus.

Either way you are doing the right thing, i.e. taking photo's & not procrastinating!

Norman

[another view]

Shooting a 50mm f1.8 wide open will give you a very narrow depth of field, especially when focused fairly close. Out of focus foregrounds don't do it for me, but if the front row of the flowers was sharp that could be interesting. To emphasize that selective focus effect, you may want to get as closer to the flowers.

The "Sierra Club Calendar" shot would be done with a small aperture like f16 or f22, but that brings up another problem. Small apertures = slower shutter speeds, and wind will cause the in-focus flowers to be blurry anyway. With 400 speed film in bright sun, this shouldn't be a problem, but often those shots are taken in early morning light with slow film (like Velvia, ISO 50). Shutter speeds that way can be over a second long and any movement will ruin the shot.

[photo101]

Thanks for the info. I am still learing how to use this thing called a camera..hehe...so my next question, is n80 specific. There are 3 options, matrix, spot, and center point focusing modes on the camera....what difference if any would those have in the over all picture? I used the matrix for the above shot. How do I decide which one to use in any given situation? If someone could explain that for me(in laymen's terms) I would much appreciate it.

[Spike]

The thing I don't like about this shot is the grey grainy look to the sky. It looks dirty. Not being a film user, I don't really know what caused this... 400asa shouldn't give a lot of grain, should it?

I really like the concept you're going for here - the huge field of dense flowers going on and on into the distance is very impressive. I wish the clump of flowers in the front center was in focus, but I don't mind shallow dof for this shot. I just have a feeling I'd personally like it better if your focus was on the foreground.

Spike

I was trying to show the emphasize the massive amount of yellow flowers over the distant hills...I am just not sure I got the right look tho. Seems too out of focus in general. Any suggestions? Thanks


Nikon N80
50mm 1.8D @1.8
ND -4
Kodak 400HD

[merckxman]

Thanks for the info. I am still learing how to use this thing called a camera..hehe...so my next question, is n80 specific. There are 3 options, matrix, spot, and center point focusing modes on the camera....what difference if any would those have in the over all picture? I used the matrix for the above shot. How do I decide which one to use in any given situation? If someone could explain that for me(in laymen's terms) I would much appreciate it.

I have an N80 as well, and fater a long time with it (3 years) I finally got a good feel for using the using the different metering systems. You have three options:

1) Matrix metering basically figures out the exposure of the scene at the five focusing points on your camera (those five squares you see in the view finder). Using really complicated algorithms, it comes up with a suitable exposure value for the shot. It essentially finds a happy medium where a really bright portion (like the sun) won't cause the camera to underexpose a darker area or vice versa. It's really best for shots like the one you took--outdoors or in shots where you aren't focusing too closely on one particular subject. It's not good for things like portraits of people near a strong light source or where you're trying to get a strong contrast between light and shadows. You can override MM by exposure bracketing (meaning setting up your camera to take one slightly underexposed shot, one normal MM-comensated shot and one slightly overexposed shot) but this is a pain and it wastes three shots. IMO, it's better to just play around with the three metering settings until you get comfortable with setting up your exposures.

2) Center weighted metering--This also uses the five points to determine exposure, but it places the emphasis on the center area of the image (75% of the metering value)--roughly the area inside the four outer focusing points on your viewfinder. The area outside this plays less of a role in setting the exposure value. This is a pretty standard feature on most SLRs, so most photgraphers are used to this type of exposure setting. It is good for most shots people take--landscape and portrait--where there are no extreme contrasts. You could have used this setting in your shot with good results.

3) Spot metering is like centerweighted metering, but exposure settings are based 100% at a small spot in the center of the viewfinder. This is good when you want to fucus in on a very specific object--like a face--in a broader picture. Also, it's good when you want to bring out a person or object in a shot with high contrast. Granted, you'll get areas with overexposure and underexposure in such a shot, but you'll have a nice exposure of your subject with strong contrast around it. I use this a great deal when doing portrait shots in natural light. This setting would not have worked for you in the shot you did below.

I don't know what happened in the shot you took. I've never seen 400HD get that grainy on what I'm guessing was a nice sunny day. It's not great film, but it's not bad either--it's a happy medium. You definitely need to set your aperture to a tighter setting--at least f16, but maybe f22. If that aperture setting puts your shutter speed below 1/60, you should probably use a tripod to take the shot in order to ensure you keep the sharpness you want.

I hope this helps.