[alstauffer]

Hello, first time posting in anything like this - my kittens (quickly becoming 'cats') are my main subjects lately with grad school taking up most of my daylight time, so I thought it would be a good idea to get some feedback on the shots I've gotten of them so far. As you can probably tell from my pictures, I'm no professional, and everything I know is just from reading online and experimenting. I've only been 'serious' about wanting to improve my photography for the past 6 months or so.

I'm not quite sure they are 'nature' since they were taken indoors, but it was the most fitting category I saw. Anyway, here they are, any feedback or advice is welcome! My apartment isn't lit very well, so if there's something I should be doing differently with the flash (or additional flashes?) to improve the shots, I'd appreciate that, too - really new to all this.










A little dark now that I see it on my work computer screens.. I do all of my editing/reviewing on a laptop, and the screen is probably far from properly calibrated.

[mattb123]

The last one is definitely a little dark but they are generally very nice. I love the composition of the last one! Did you add the vignette? It might be a little too much IMO.
The background of the first one is just a bit distracting and I would have left a little more room around the cat's ear that touches the edge of the frame.

Overall I think you are on the right track and the photos are good. I can see you think about your compositions which is a good thing!

[fg-one]

First, you seem to have got the focus right in all three, which is not so easy to do. The first one would be great without the ear cut (). The white balance might be off a bit but I don't know the actual colour of the walls or of the cat. I like the guitar in the background. Lighting is excellent in the second one and the third one is definitely under exposed and the WB seems off. Here it is, with some corrections. It have taken the WB on the ceiling but it might not be correct. Only you can tell whether or not the cat fur looks good. Vignetting suits the third photo very well by darkening the empty upper left hand corner. I would not have added any to the other ones. Removing the vignette from the first one would make a nicer view of the guitar. Anyway, I like all three compositions. I am sure you will make plenty more nice photos of those two. Cats are pleasant models, more easy going than dogs that always run towards the photographer.

[Schraubstock]

You are in the Pentax forum here and these are taken with an Olympus.

Nevertheless, now that you are here, your colour reproduction is sadly lacking. If you enjoy taking photos and want to be more serious about it the final product, namely the photos that you take, is in the end what matters. In my opinion your photos will only be as good as the weakest link in the chain will allow you. In your case the weak link is the laptop. Laptops are notoriously not up to the task because their graphics card, generally speaking, is not designed for serious photo editing. Some are better than others of course.

On the other hand you should be able to load some good photo manipulation software on your laptop and with a bit of learning and practice you should be able to come up with better quality corrections as far as colour is concerned.

Greetings

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Last edited by Schraubstock; 03-07-2012 at 09:38 PM.

[alstauffer]

The last one is definitely a little dark but they are generally very nice. I love the composition of the last one! Did you add the vignette? It might be a little too much IMO.
The background of the first one is just a bit distracting and I would have left a little more room around the cat's ear that touches the edge of the frame.

Overall I think you are on the right track and the photos are good. I can see you think about your compositions which is a good thing!

Thank you for the constructive comments! I did add the vignette, and I admit I've gone quite overboard with it lately.. I just bought Lightroom and liked it on the first image I tried it on, and have been using it far too often since I will try to keep track of the ear cut-off in the future, I didn't notice it until you pointed it out, thanks.

First, you seem to have got the focus right in all three, which is not so easy to do. The first one would be great without the ear cut (). The white balance might be off a bit but I don't know the actual colour of the walls or of the cat. I like the guitar in the background. Lighting is excellent in the second one and the third one is definitely under exposed and the WB seems off. Here it is, with some corrections. It have taken the WB on the ceiling but it might not be correct. Only you can tell whether or not the cat fur looks good. Vignetting suits the third photo very well by darkening the empty upper left hand corner. I would not have added any to the other ones. Removing the vignette from the first one would make a nicer view of the guitar. Anyway, I like all three compositions. I am sure you will make plenty more nice photos of those two. Cats are pleasant models, more easy going than dogs that always run towards the photographer.

Getting the focus right is pretty challenging because of how active these little guys are - these three photos I managed to grab during some of their 'down time,' so it was a bit easier. Now that I'm over the honeymoon period with Lightroom, I'll have to revisit these photo's without the vignette - I definitely have been using it too liberally. As far as the cats vs. dogs comment, my cats are very 'dog-like', as in they'll run over to investigate as soon as they hear the camera click or focus or notice you pointing it at them it makes shooting them difficult at times.

For white balance, my third image is definitely off. I think that the real life color is just a bit warmer (is that the right term?) than the version you edited (not quite pure white ceiling, and beige-ish walls), but what you posted helped point out some of what I did wrong in that image.

You are in the Pentax forum here and these are taken with an Olympus.

Nevertheless, now that you are here, your colour reproduction is sadly lacking. If you enjoy taking photos and want to be more serious about it the final product, namely the photos that you take, is in the end what matters. In my opinion your photos will only be as good as the weakest link in the chain will allow you. In your case the weak link is the laptop. Laptops are notoriously not up to the task because their graphics card, generally speaking, is not designed for serious photo editing. Some are better than others of course.

On the other hand you should be able to load some good photo manipulation software on your laptop and with a bit of learning and practice you should be able to come up with better quality corrections as far as colour is concerned.

These were taken with my Olympus that I just sold. My K-x came in the mail yesterday, and I've been working on my thesis all day today and haven't had a chance to play/shoot with it yet, sadly. The rest of the shots I post here will probably be from the K-x.

Thanks for the response and showing the more accurate WB renderings. The original images were much closer to the ones that you posted than the ones from my first post. On the third, I think I just sort of 'lost my way' while editing, but on the first the yellow-ish cast was somewhat intentional. The lighting in that room of my apartment as a very yellow tint to it, so when I think of the cat in that place/pose, the colors of my first image are how I 'remember' him. Is it bad practice to intentionally push colors away from 'true'? I thought the warm tint added to the photo, but like I said, I am very new to this! The third photo was just poor processing on my part.

My laptop is certainly not ideal for image editing; it doesn't even have a dedicated graphics processor, but it's probably all I will have for a while. I do have Lightroom (hooray student pricing!) and Corel Paintshop Pro for editing though, so I could be worse off.

Thanks very much for the advice; hopefully by the end of the week I'll have time to look at these again with fresh eyes and of course shoot the kittens with my new camera!

[Jessesdad]

I don't care what you took them with. They're lovely shots of beautiful cats. My feline friend of 13 years recently died so I am probably a bit biased and emotional but these are some of the nicest cat shots I've seen in a while.

[loco]

I think these are lovely shots, too. The first two are really really nice.

[alstauffer]

I don't care what you took them with. They're lovely shots of beautiful cats. My feline friend of 13 years recently died so I am probably a bit biased and emotional but these are some of the nicest cat shots I've seen in a while.

Thank you I'm sorry for your loss, and can understand how that can feel. My first pet was a cat named Nala, that my parents got for us when I was 5 or 6 years old, so she's basically been in my life as far back as I can remember. She passed a few months ago, just before I moved across the country for graduate school. I'm 23 now, so she had a long, spoiled life, but it was still very sad to see her go.

I think these are lovely shots, too. The first two are really really nice.

Thank you I've taken hundreds of pictures of them now and these are still among my favorites.

These are far from the best quality, but the same subjects and I like them very much so I thought I would share:




She got into the clean laundry because it was warm and I had good timing as she climbed out. Not the best focus (50mm prime MF lens and I had to act quickly..), but I still love the picture.

[smf]

Welcome to Pentaxforums, best wishes regarding your graduate studies and your photography, and congratulations on the delightful photos you submitted. I consider the last one — IMGP0131-2 — to be especially good.
I'm not an expert in photography of animals, but I recommend that in most cases you try to have the eyes sharply in focus. In that last photo, IMGP0131-2, perhaps you couldn't achieve even sharper focus on the eye plus the excellent sharpness of the fur above the eye.
In many cases, inclusion of technical information such as lens, aperture, shutter speed, ISO and type of metering could make more helpful critiques more likely.
Respectfully,
Stu

[alstauffer]

Welcome to Pentaxforums, best wishes regarding your graduate studies and your photography, and congratulations on the delightful photos you submitted. I consider the last one — IMGP0131-2 — to be especially good.
I'm not an expert in photography of animals, but I recommend that in most cases you try to have the eyes sharply in focus. In that last photo, IMGP0131-2, perhaps you couldn't achieve even sharper focus on the eye plus the excellent sharpness of the fur above the eye.
In many cases, inclusion of technical information such as lens, aperture, shutter speed, ISO and type of metering could make more helpful critiques more likely.
Respectfully,
Stu

Thank you Stu! My goal was to have the eye in focus, but it's very hard for me to tell in the viewfinder what's in focus, since the diopter can't quite correct completely for my eyesight, and I usually don't have time to check on the LCD before the cat runs off somewhere else That image is one that I keep trying to recreate with better focus though, so maybe one of these days I'll have an 'update' to it.

Thanks for the tip on posting lens, aperture, etc., I'll have to remember to post that info from now on.

[smf]

You are most welcome.

To aid in checking focus with my Pentax K100D, I have been considering the purchase of a Hoodman HoodLoupe 3.0 and the Hoodloupe Mag 3.0. The latter is a 3x magnifying eyecup. (By the way, someone at Hoodman told me the Hoodloupe Mag 3.0 is not compatible with a version of the HoouLoupe prior to 3.0.)

Please let me know what you think of the products if you have experience with them.

t appears that the products are shipped in sealed packages to retailers and to individual purchasers. I had been hoping to be able to try the HoodLoupe Mag before I buy both the HoodLoupe and the Mag.
A friend has an older version of the HoodLoupe.

Here's a website: HOODLOUPE MAG 3.0-Hoodman Corporation

While traveling without my K100D, I saw a Vivitar magnifier which is a one--piece unit rather than two pieces and which I think is a 2x rather than the more powerful 3x. Its price was lower than the HoodLoupe equipment.
Best wishes.
Stu