Duck In The Long Grass Critque

I took this photo on a walk one morning some time ago. I was so excited how close this mama duck let me approach. I then submitted it to a photo critique website and I got back some helpful hints. First I had to overcome the fear of encountering trolls. But it was overall a very helpful experience.

I noticed you said you were a beginner in another comment. There is a rule of thumb that your shutter speed should be at least your focal length. Some people use 2x focal length (everyone has different hands/stability).
So since this was shot at 200mm, your shutter should be at least 1/200s if not 1/400s. You could nudge the ISO up to compensate for the reduced exposure. Hope it helps! Personally I think it's a great photo, and keep shooting!!
Nina edit: instead of boosting ISO to compensate for increasing the shutter speed, using a wider aperture (smaller F-stop number) may be preferable.

I personally would stop down a little, because some of the highlights look ever so slightly washed out, and perhaps have used a longer lens, but overall everything looks fairly natural.
This is a pretty good photo, especially if you are an amateur photographer. I would say that you should stick with it, and you'll only get better. Nature Photography is extremely difficult, and I highly respect you for going for it. I personally do not have the patience.

I like it - IMO though, I would remove the stem coming up the duck's neck and clean up the blue back drop and remove some of those stray leaves at the edges of the photo. It'll have a nicer appeal on the eyes and won't appear to be too busy.  


I'm getting sick of seeing the same damn advice to straight up Photoshop doctor, cut, and splice every photo posted here so that there isn't a stray or slightly distracting (or interesting) element to it. This is great advice if you want to produce generic greeting card "photos", but this isn't for fashion magazine portrait. It's a picture of a duck in grass, advising to remove the grass is asinine. It's quickly goes from a cool photo of "duck in grass" to "uninspired preconception of what I think a duck in grass should be".

Overall it was a consistent bump up the shutter speed. 

I was at 100 ISO, F/8 Shutter Speed 1/160 and at 200mm

So since I was at 200mm I needed to be at least at 1/200 if not 1/400. 

Another lesson learned!

Auto Focus Struggles

Just looking at it, it's not a bad shot.

I had no idea what type of bird it was at the time. But apparently it's a Sora Rail. They are apparently pretty secretive so I had no idea I was getting really luck at the time, especially with two little kids as well.

BUT the shot to me is on the rubbish side of things. The stinking eyes are not in focus. They are slightly blurry. The main body of the bird is clear.

So my next task is to find out how to make sure the eyes come into focus every time. 

But here are some I got from the same day.

Again, those blasted eyes aren't as crisp and clear as they should be

This one is my favorite I think.

I've been practicing with my 55mm-200mm lens. I'm already drooling over a 500mm-1000mm lens. But that one is only manual focus so that's going to be a little ways off before I can do that I think.

Easter Portraits

This Easter I tried to get portraits of family at Easter. 

Fortunately most of them allowed me too. 

Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate that much the whole weekend.

This one I should have changed to a different lens. I was using the prime lens. Should have switched.

This time I put the camera in Aperture priority mode and let the camera figure it all out. The prime lens is perfect for portraits! It really does a great job.  However for other shots like I mentioned before not as good as another lens would be. At least that's what I'm figuring.

Weekend Assignment 08

Weekend Assignment 08

Get the proper exposure of the sky.

This one took a little while for me to get done. I wanted to wait until the weather was a little bit decent. But that never came. I went out while it was overcast. I had the directions and parameters written down on a post it note to reference. Then after the first photo I looked down into the camera bag and the post it note was gone. The wind had taken it away. So I had to wing it. and winged it badly I did. I botched it. 

They just came out..blah

I went out again and this time it was sunny.

So I need to work on the overcast obviously. 

Teacher's feedbackw as 

"Looks Good!"

Weekend Assignment Review

hehe, looks nice :-) good job on using the paper and cellphone for creative lighting!

 

I told him the same thing about how badly I do at stars. 

Scoooore! Not one bad thing about them this time!

Victory is mine!!

Weekend Assignment 07

So this assignment was so neat! I'm just going to link it here so you can see the amazing example they provided. 

Click here. Seriously see how awesome this can look. DO IT

I was aiming for a elephant to be shooting stars out if it's trunk. I kinda got it. But I stink at drawing stars as it is. I really don't know how I haven't gained that life skill. Really I have no idea. Then cutting it out, oh boy. But for how bad I am at that, I'm not dejected in how things turned out. 

Diffused cell phone light through white construction paper

Cell phone light no diffuser

Cell phone light diffused through green construction paper

This assignment was fun! I haven't gotten any feedback since I just submitted it. I might hear something tomorrow.

Weekend Assignment 6

This weekend assignment was light painting and using slower shutter speeds. :(

I suuuuck!

 Didn't help there were 35MPH winds outside.

Prime Lens

I found a prime lens! 

I drool over it's aperture capabilities.  I've read that this one is great for portraits so I was curious. I've tested it out on the kids since they are the only ones I can play photographer with. I was struggling with this lens though. It kept getting over exposed really easily. The downside with kids is that they don't stay still long enough for you to figure out a shot.

First one isn't one that I'm happy with. It came out over exposed in the end result. I made it look a little bit better end result.  But here you can see how lovely that aperture is!

I think Cole's came out nicer since he was actually listening to the directions...sorta. He was a little easier to pose a little bit. 

I"m still learning with this lens. Either I'm in my head or it's a little more difficult to find the settings for this one. I might try Aperture priority mode to see what that does. Make the camera do the rest of the work.

Weekend Assignment 5 Review

Reviews are in.

It feels mixed. 

Whomp Whomp

"if you want practice... try 5 photo's of just that lego board... there are lots of ways to photograph something... top view was nice, now try more artistic ones"

So I've been thinking about how to do the lego one with more dramatic lighting and different ideas. I'm coming up dry. I'll keep thinking though and see what happens. 

Do you know how small this lego actually is? 

L                             L

L                             L

About that big and completely flat. 

Why did I take a picture of a stupid lego??

Weekend Assignment 5

Hi photoclass,

it's friday again so, time for a new assignment. As we haven't really gone in to the technical parts of the class, these early assignments have the goal to train your "photographic eye".

And this week, I want you to try and find repeating patterns, shapes, lines.

The goal is to show the play of light and beauty of repetition, of strong lines, of patterns in all it's forms.

Nature has some really beautiful ones, so do man made structures, so there are a lot of them around, now it's up to you to find a way to show them...

So I'm finally beginning to play catch up. 

 

 

These are in order of my favorite to least. Now I wait and see what's wrong with them.

Behind in my photo class

Doh! I've fallen behind. I plan on catching up soon. I've been focusing on other endeavors that require all my attention. Not because I love those endeavors. I just really suck at them so I need try super hard. 

I did get out and about on Sunday.

They came in a little underexposed I think So I corrected that. Then I made some colors brighter to make them stand out a little more.

Assignment 3 Results

Feedback is in and it's OK!

the pouring one is not sharp (too slow a shutterspeed), the one before that has the cup cut off....
but, good job on posing them, on finding nice compositions

So that feedback was better than I thought I was going to get.  I have a achillies heel of cutting crap off. I re took some because I noticed I cut it off. The pouring one is the result of a shaky hand. If I had a steadier hand it would have been sharper.  Also the autofocus was going behind the cup?? So I had to manually focus it.

Overall I think it was good feedback.

                                       Top of cup cut off

Assignment 4

Hi photoclass,
This week, we are going to work on composition. What I want you to do is make 5 different photo's of a sodacan.
1 where the camera is higher than the can
1 where the camera is the same hight as the can
1 where the camera is lower than the can
1 with the can in the middle of the photo
1 with the can at about 1/3 of the photo
at least 1 with natural light (sun or clouds), at least 1 with artificial light (candles, lightbulbs, flashlights, whatever you want that isn't the sun) (can be mixed with the previous 3)
you can mix those.... so a photo with the can in the middle, shot from the same hight and using natural light covers those 3 requirements all in one photo
tips:

• mind your background : make sure it fits the photo, when in doubt, search for a white wall or use a sheet of paper to make your own... put the can on the bottom and bend the paper against the wall to make a seamless background
• use a tripod or pose the camera on a stable surface to get sharp long exposures
• look at the photo's and try to improve them while shooting, don't be satisfied with the first attempts

I thought a lot about what I wanted to do, and I had some fun ideas. But when it came down to actually doing it my head just wasn't in it. 

Artificial light from the fridge

This one I'm not sure of. Shot vertically since the cup is vertical, but doing so cuts the can off. I'll probably hear about this one.

Natural light outside, shot above can

Camera at same level natural light.

I don't feel like I gave it my all on this one. I did a lot of shots over and over.  I used my tripod and the can pouring one. I feel like I could have changed the exposure on that one a little to lighten it up and get a longer exposure of the drink pouring.

Yes, I love Diet Pepsi.

Mirror Assignment 2

"Hi photoclass,
As the lessons are rather theoretical at the moment I'll keep these assignments really active.
For this assignment, I would like you to make a creative photo using a mirror. How you do this is your own choice, you can use one or multiple mirrors, you can leave them and make a photograph of the mirror or you can use the mirror for effects... it is up to you!
For this assignment, photoshop is allowed but it needs to be mentioned in the comments."

My initial  was to photograph the fishtank and use the glass as an mirror. It did not work. I didn't get one shot in the 20 minutes I was trying. So I took a "Screw you fish!" attitude and moved on to another idea. I have one mirror that isn't attatched to a wall. It's my make up mirror. The neat thing about the make up mirror is it has a LED light around it which causes a ring on my eye. So I did two different types of photos. One with a drawing mannequin and then myself.

Since it was a makeup mirror, he had to be holding makeup!

These next ones were extremely hard to get. I had to shoot blind so I couldn't line it up at all. It was just guess work.

It wasn't exactly the outcome I wanted, but it was close. And yes, I did freshen my mascara for this close up.

The comments review of them:

put the light behind the camera and look at it to get it in your eye
like your submission, but it's a bit cut off at the bottom

I did ask which one was the one he thought was cut off and it was the first one, which after looking yep. It sure is. :(

AHHH! They actually liked it!?? I'm a teacher's pet. Let's get that out in the open. PLUS this person is a AMAZING photographer. 

So I'm a lot more pleased with the outcome of this assignment. I could even classify it as giddy that they liked it.

10.10.10 results

The reviews of the photos weren't that bad this time around. They did say when something is vertical to turn the camera vertical. So that's was a "I'm a idiot" moment. Also to take more time on them, which I would have loved to do. Next time...I hope.

Should have. Could have. Will now.

 I found another shot that didn't cut off the reflection. A lot of people did like this one too, but were bummed out the reflection was cut off. I was too. So I found one that wasn't.

Sometimes you need a hero and sometimes you need to be the hero.

Internet is still out at home. Library, thank you for your Wifi.

10.10.10

I am doing a online class through reddit.

I'm excited to do this and get the feedback I need to improve. 

The first assignment was 10.10.10. Drive/walk/skip/run etc 10 minutes. You get a 10 step radius from where you end up and then you get to take 10 photos.

Not all mine are fantastic. I had to take the toddlers. Toddlers who love to run. I hope the next assignment I am able to leave them behind.

I was setting up the below picture when these guys flew off. I had to quickly adjust my settings on the fly.

This thing gets ignored a lot I think

Poor guys, freezing and mad at me for stopping their running off into the distance.

I needed to switch lenses to get the silly thing in focus. I see that now. Too late!

Fallen tree from the ice storm

I was running out of things in my radius, so I played with the wind,shadows and my hair.

This one is my favorite

Now we wait for feedback!