Better qualty photos

[Ed.innit]

Took these at Silverstone Sunday...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/94972722@N02/sets/72157633254873738/

I know the ISO is out, can never really judge this, always get it wrong.

I want them to be sharper and brighter..

Tips please...

 

[Wick]

Brightness you could adjust afterwards in PP, sharpness, some of them are on the mark some of them slightly off.

The ones through the fence aren't great for obvious reasons, other ones, it just looks like the focus is out slightly.

That said, I'd be happy with most of them, certainly not a bad effort mate!

 

[Ed.innit]

Yea, for the panning shots I manually focused on the grass just the other side of the track, then panned and shot the cars..

Ill try and brighten some up now in PS

 

[Ben10]

The thing is if you want to get nice sharp images of a moving car you will need to reduce your shutter speed. In doing that, your images will be darker unless you up the ISO. Then you will obviously get more noise on the image. The best thing to do is just edit the contrast, brightness and sharpness in PP. You just need to find the right balance....

 

[Niall]

You’re using f22, this won’t let much light into the camera and will also cause diffraction to occur which will cause the image to be softer. So there are the quick fixes to your problems, just open that aperture, bring the ISO down and you’ll be sorted.

 

[JJ!]

I usually use AF-C focus mode on moving subjects and pan and shoot.

 

[JamesBryan]

The ones at ISO 200 look fine. I would have stuck with a low ISO on a bright day like that.

The ISO 800 ones were causing the aperture to shoot up to f/22+

 

[ukaskew]

Tips please...

Forget about ISO, in 10 years of shooting motorsport I've adjusted mine away from base ISO 3 times (the 3 times I've been to the Britcar 24hr race, usually around 9pm when it's so dark you can hardly see anything). ISO200 will be fine for any circuit event.

You ideally want to show a bit of movement, so the conventional way to do it is to use Shutter Priority, Continuous AF and probably start somewhere around 1/320, AF on modern bodies is more than quick enough not to need to manually focus. A nice gentle smooth pan will get you sharp shots with a bit of practice. Even for head on shots there should be no real need to be shooting at 1/1000 etc.

No idea if it's any interest, but I've been gradually working on putting my various motorsport guides online in the past week...http://behindthefence.co.uk/?p=37

 

[Ed.innit]

Thanks all.

Take 2 at Donnington Sunday..

 

[Ed.innit]

ukaskew - I found that brilliant mate... some good tips in there as I didnt really have a clue before, jsut tried settings, if it looked crap on the camera screen, I changed...

Just taken this...


[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/94972722@N02/8657809641/]DSC_0334 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr[/URL]

Kinda happy with the flowers, but the bits of red wall you can see through the stairs have loads of noise at the bottom. How can I reduce this? Is it the lense, a setting, or my monitor?

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

ISO isn't hard to figure out. Just keep it on the lowest unless you NEED to increase it.

Judging from a quick look at the EXIFs on your photos, you had no need to increase it.

​

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

The flower photo - you're shooting at ISO1600 on a 'cheap' SLR....you're going to get a lot of noise.

 

[Ed.innit]

Guess its the camera then as I took the same photo on every different ISO setting, and its the same..

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

Use a tripod, take the photo using the lowest ISO, then one at 1600 then post them up.

 

[Ed.innit]

Give me 10 mins, battery just died

 

[Niall]

The D3000 isn’t exactly known for it’s ISO performance, my D40 was terrible over ISO 800 in good conditions, never mind places and things with dark tones, so 1600 will be very noisy.

 

[Ed.innit]

Fail.
I was adjusting the ISO, but had it set to auto, so it was just going to 1600 each time..

DSC_0350 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

DSC_0349 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

Thats better

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

but had it set to auto

There's your problem. Don't shoot in auto. Learn how to use the camera properly.

I'm on an iPad ATM, so I'm not going to be able to see the difference that clearly. And I can't be assed opening the photos in Flickr.

 

[Ed.innit]

No the ISO was set to auto, not the camera...

Im no camera guru, got to start somewhere..

 

[Vish]

Forget auto mate, I'm no pro and its easy to learn quickly. It also make a photo more pleasing when you get it right.

I use the lowest ISO, and adjust shutter speed and aperture depending on use and light conditions. Have a play, fiddle with them to see the differences, it's a great way of learning. Generally once you've found a good level of light, if you halve shutter speed, you need to double aperture. An aperture and shutter speed chart may help.

 

[Ed.innit]

Yea I dont use auto, but Auto ISO Sensitivity was turned on....
Its now off, so ill have another play in the daylight...

 

[JJ!]

You kind of get to learn what ISO you need in certain situations. Just keep on practicing and things will get better.

 

[Ed.innit]

Take 2.
Much better imo, but some still arnt quite in focus...

Here's the set...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/94972722@N02/sets/72157633302976850/

Here's my faves..

DSC_0061 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

DSC_0029 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

DSC_0081 copy by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

DSC_0220 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

DSC_0233 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

DSC_0246 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

DSC_0344 by Ed Ayre, on Flickr

 

[Habitual]

Coming back to the OT for a little... I think they're mostly good photographs, my only issue is that the crops are mostly unusual.

I don't know about the seasoned photographers on here, but speaking for myself as someone who's still learning, I tend to try and keep the pictures in a "normal" aspect ratio.

I think that using unusual crops rarely does much for the picture.

If that was my set, I would have just kept the pictures in their original ratio and used the rule of thirds to get the best composition.

But yes, good set! Use a lower ISO next time (as heavily discussed. )

 

[JJ!]

I'm with Tom. I tend to use all my photos as the ratio they come out the camera and cs6 has a great cropping feature which allows you to keep aspect ratio and move the photo around the cropped frame.

I still use auto iso on rare occasions were I'm shooting in changing light. But don't have the limit set at its maximum. Usually 3200 still gets pretty clean results.

 

[Habitual]

I'm with Tom. I tend to use all my photos as the ratio they come out the camera and cs6 has a great cropping feature which allows you to keep aspect ratio and move the photo around the cropped frame.

If you use Lightroom, you can keep the aspect ratio on there too by holding shift before you move the mouse.