- This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 11 months ago by
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I enjoy taking “macro” pictures. I know this isn’t technically macro, but I like the out-of-focus background made possible by a focal length of 300mm.
Exif Data:
Camera Model: Canon EOS REBEL T3
Shutter speed [s]: 1/80
Aperture: F8.0
Focal length [mm]: 300Lens used: Sigma 70-300mm F/4-5.6 DG Macro Lens
Manually focused using Live-view and 10x zoom.
Comments appreciated!
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Hi Ezra,
Nice shot! The blurriness of the background is great, I like the centered composition here because the subject is almost symmetrical, and there’s detail in the dark fur. What I don’t like is the large, bright tree in the background; it’s rather distracting and unpleasant. If you could move around to eliminate that, I think it’d be better.
God bless,
Paul@Paul Burgess
Thanks for your comment! You know, it’s funny but I never really noticed the big ugly tree trunk in the background! I mean, I must have seen it, but it just didn’t register! I guess that’s why we have others critique our shots!
I’m hoping James will have something to say about my picture too…
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
Hey there Ezra, animals and pets are trending subjects these days; professionally taken stock sell well these days I’ve heard.
Expression in dogs are great. I feel like he’s really posing there for you. Good choice to use a long focal length for the blurred out background. Is there a reason you chose f/8 in combination with the 300mm?
If I were taking this shot, I probably would have overexposed some. The dog is black and the background is bright so what the camera says is a correct exposure appears too dark to me. It’s better to blow out highlights in the background than to have the subject underexposed, sorta like in the attached image.
And it feels to me the image isn’t perfectly level, as I naturally use the stool as a point of reference.
And oh, one last thing, like Paul said, because the symmetry is so perfect, the fact that the ear on the left is bent down breaks the symmetry just a enough to provide the energy needed to keep it from being too static of a composition.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
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I think the aperture of f/8 was simply for a sharper image. My Sigma lens is slightly soft even at it’s minimum aperture of f/5.6!
As to overexposing, I am of mixed opinions about it. As Paul Burgess said, the tree trunk is already distracting, and if it was brighter, it would be all that much more distracting! Of course, if I was going to do it over, the tree trunk wouldn’t be there, so I could follow your suggestion too.:)
I’m afraid the “central composition” that you like so much, was more of an accident. i.e. I didn’t sit there and think, “Wow, what this picture really needs is for the puppy to be smack dab in the middle”. I have the bad habit of tending to center stuff in the frame, I think mainly because I always use the center focus point for focusing, as it’s the only cross-type point on my camera!
Only focus point in the center, eh? That would certainly tend toward overdoing the center compositions. That’s when manual focus could come in handy for sure.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that my camera has only one focus point, my Rebel T3 has 9. What I was trying to say was that only the center point is ‘cross-type’ which is supposed to be more accurate.
When I first got my DSLR, I let the camera automatically select the focus points, but that wasn’t the greatest situation! Too many times it would focus on the wrong thing, and I finally learned to manually select focus points to correct that problem. I have learned to pay close attention to where my camera is focusing, because, like you blogged about the other day, I have had too many disappointments!- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
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