[Tonytee]

A decent shot of one of my wife's gardening skills. I hope everyone enjoys. Thanks for looking and please feel free to offer any comments/suggestions.

Antonio

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[BigMackCam]

Hi Tony. Nice photo

Constructive comments:

- The flash is pretty harsh and the areas between the leaves are very dark because the exposure is almost entirely from the flash, so choose a higher ISO (maybe 800 or 1600 instead of the ISO 200 you have selected) allowing much more ambient exposure to come through; you'll have to deal with and accept more noise, but the result should look more natural
- In terms of framing, if you had backed up a little you could have got the whole of that leaf to the left of the flower in frame, with the flower itself and the leaves to the lower right of it in the right-hand third of the frame - this would give you a nice composition loosely following the "rule of thirds", which would be more pleasing to the eye. You could maybe even rotate the camera a little to the left to help you get the important bits into the lower third of the frame too...

Hope this helps

[Tonytee]

Hi Tony. Nice photo

Constructive comments:

- The flash is pretty harsh and the areas between the leaves are very dark because the exposure is almost entirely from the flash, so choose a higher ISO (maybe 800 or 1600 instead of the ISO 200 you have selected) allowing much more ambient exposure to come through; you'll have to deal with and accept more noise, but the result should look more natural
- In terms of framing, if you had backed up a little you could have got the whole of that leaf to the left of the flower in frame, with the flower itself and the leaves to the lower right of it in the right-hand third of the frame - this would give you a nice composition loosely following the "rule of thirds", which would be more pleasing to the eye. You could maybe even rotate the camera a little to the left to help you get the important bits into the lower third of the frame too...

Hope this helps

That is awesome advice. I was just telling my wife that as a film photographer, ISO was my number one priority. Now if I do remember to adjust for it, it is only an afterthought. I have set my camera to adjust between ISO 200-3200 automatically. Should make a difference. Also, I really appreciate your mentioning composition and the rule of thirds issues. Many thanks as it is very much appreciated.

Rgds,

Antonio

[BigMackCam]

That is awesome advice. I was just telling my wife that as a film photographer, ISO was my number one priority. Now if I do remember to adjust for it, it is only an afterthought. I have set my camera to adjust between ISO 200-3200 automatically. Should make a difference. Also, I really appreciate your mentioning composition and the rule of thirds issues. Many thanks as it is very much appreciated

Glad to help

Compared to the "golden" days of film photography, we're spoiled rotten with the adjustable ISO of our DSLRs. I only took up photography in the digital age, but have recently started getting into 35mm film (slowly!), and one of the biggest challenges to me is being limited to the ISO of the film I have loaded. With DSLRs we can adjust ISO individually for each shot, which is a luxury I really appreciate

The biggest improvements to my flash photography came from balancing ambient and flash exposure (initially, all of my shots were at a low ISO, so you can imagine the results were harsh) and bouncing the flash off a suitable ceiling or wall and/or using a diffuser attachment, to increase the size of the light source and soften its effect.

One more tip... if you don't want to shoot entirely Manual and prefer programme modes, try using TAv. It works well, allowing you to control aperture (for depth of field) and shutter speed (for creative effect and to avoid blur due to camera shake), while setting ISO automatically to suit those other settings. It works surprisingly well with flash photography, as it seems to set high-enough ISOs to balance the ambient and flash exposure quite well. I shoot in TAv mode a lot, generally because I'm happy to accept whatever ISO is optimal for the creative control I need from the aperture and shutter speed I select. The worst that can happen is I end up with a shot that is noisier than I had hoped because of a high ISO - but it's better than no shot at all

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 05-19-2016 at 04:43 PM.

[Tonytee]

Glad to help

Compared to the "golden" days of film photography, we're spoiled rotten with the adjustable ISO of our DSLRs. I only took up photography in the digital age, but have recently started getting into 35mm film (slowly!), and one of the biggest challenges to me is being limited to the ISO of the film I have loaded. With DSLRs we can adjust ISO individually for each shot, which is a luxury I really appreciate

The biggest improvements to my flash photography came from balancing ambient and flash exposure (initially, all of my shots were at a low ISO, so you can imagine the results were harsh) and bouncing the flash off a suitable ceiling or wall and/or using a diffuser attachment, to increase the size of the light source and soften its effect.

One more tip... if you don't want to shoot entirely Manual and prefer programme modes, try using TAv. It works well, allowing you to control aperture (for depth of field) and shutter speed (for creative effect and to avoid blur due to camera shake), while setting ISO automatically to suit those other settings. It works surprisingly well with flash photography, as it seems to set high-enough ISOs to balance the ambient and flash exposure quite well. I shoot in TAv mode a lot, generally because I'm happy to accept whatever ISO is optimal for the creative control I need from the aperture and shutter speed I select. The worst that can happen is I end up with a shot that is noisier than I had hoped because of a high ISO - but it's better than no shot at all

I understand and totally agree. There are times when my D70 does a wonderful job in keeping out noise or at least minimizing it. Noise is becoming quite a constant irritant for me and I am losing patience with it every day. This month marks my first anniversary with digital photography. When I gave up film, I believed by going digital that I would be making a quantum leap into high technology only to find that Nikon designed and constructed a camera that cannot handle certain colors. This is referred to as "Limited Dynamic Range." Which also includes inaccurate metering. I tell ya, that is a very hard pill to swallow, given the fact that I have been an ardent Nikon supporter since infancy in photography.

Thanks for your helpful suggestions.

Antonio

[BigMackCam]

I understand and totally agree. There are times when my D70 does a wonderful job in keeping out noise or at least minimizing it. Noise is becoming quite a constant irritant for me and I am losing patience with it every day.

Just on that subject...

For some time I was absolutely obsessed with noise, but the thing is, it can be reduced so very effectively by a number of software packages. My personal favourite is Lightroom 6 - not the subscription, but the standalone product. It is able to remove luminance and - especially - colour noise very, very effectively indeed. The initial temptation is to remove too much noise, and that results in a loss of detail (particularly on the luminance noise reduction), but removing just enough to allow a good quality image at the required viewing size gives truly excellent results. I don't know what post-processing software you use, if any, but I *highly* recommend investing in Lightroom 6... it's a better investment than buying a camera that is three or four years newer, in my view. The other thing I'd say is, thinking back to your film days, you'll recall that ISO 400 and higher film had quite a bit of noise. Many of us make the mistake with digital to expect or hope for no noise whatsoever (I did, initiially), or far less noise, from our digital cameras. But if we embrace that noise and accept it is part of higher-ISO photography, then with *gentle* post-processing we can work with it (not always around it), and it's not the problem we believe it to be

[Tonytee]

Just on that subject...

For some time I was absolutely obsessed with noise, but the thing is, it can be reduced so very effectively by a number of software packages. My personal favourite is Lightroom 6 - not the subscription, but the standalone product. It is able to remove luminance and - especially - colour noise very, very effectively indeed. The initial temptation is to remove too much noise, and that results in a loss of detail (particularly on the luminance noise reduction), but removing just enough to allow a good quality image at the required viewing size gives truly excellent results. I don't know what post-processing software you use, if any, but I *highly* recommend investing in Lightroom 6... it's a better investment than buying a camera that is three or four years newer, in my view. The other thing I'd say is, thinking back to your film days, you'll recall that ISO 400 and higher film had quite a bit of noise. Many of us make the mistake with digital to expect or hope for no noise whatsoever (I did, initiially), or far less noise, from our digital cameras. But if we embrace that noise and accept it is part of higher-ISO photography, then with *gentle* post-processing we can work with it (not always around it), and it's not the problem we believe it to be

Thanks for the suggestion. I have found a no cost program called: "Free Noise Reduction". Honestly, it is a really good noise reduction software. That is all it was designed for, only noise reduction. It is not the panacea for all ills, however I have been more appreciative of what it does. I would have no problem in suggesting using it.
No charge and it can always be uninstalled. Thanks again,

Antonio

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Last edited by Tonytee; 05-20-2016 at 11:17 PM. Reason: Grammar Correction

[Tonytee]

Just on that subject...

For some time I was absolutely obsessed with noise, but the thing is, it can be reduced so very effectively by a number of software packages. My personal favourite is Lightroom 6 - not the subscription, but the standalone product. It is able to remove luminance and - especially - colour noise very, very effectively indeed. The initial temptation is to remove too much noise, and that results in a loss of detail (particularly on the luminance noise reduction), but removing just enough to allow a good quality image at the required viewing size gives truly excellent results. I don't know what post-processing software you use, if any, but I *highly* recommend investing in Lightroom 6... it's a better investment than buying a camera that is three or four years newer, in my view. The other thing I'd say is, thinking back to your film days, you'll recall that ISO 400 and higher film had quite a bit of noise. Many of us make the mistake with digital to expect or hope for no noise whatsoever (I did, initiially), or far less noise, from our digital cameras. But if we embrace that noise and accept it is part of higher-ISO photography, then with *gentle* post-processing we can work with it (not always around it), and it's not the problem we believe it to be

I never had any problem with Kodak Max., ISO 400. I did have problems with grain and ISO 800 and higher. When working with film, say at ISO 200 and I felt that the setting was to slow for the conditions, I found it beneficial to push the ISO to a higher setting, say 225 or even 250, depending on what the settings offered. I used Free Noise Reduction again today and was quite pleased with the results. It offers correction for Color Noise also and various color adjustments. Norton said it was safe, so there are no concerns in that dept.

Thanks again,
Antonio