Clicking Mad

ah, don't go to ot

thanks

I got sent this link from my mother this arvo

smile

I just shot off a few but my battery died

that is a very nice pic of Puck, great clarity and background blur

hmm ... maybe it is time I looked around ...

yup, it's a pity, maybe we could make a day out in the new year or something?

Yup same camera

I'm pretty sure I'm on the other side to you ...

wow that was itchy quick

can't wait to see more, make me want now, and I can't

nah, I'll be fine a little longer on the kit lenses :D

sweet pic Vickie

I took some of the dogs this arvo, just another little practise with the reindeer ears

Jamie wears them pretty well

... Texas not so

and Chester is probably thinking: "again with this"

and this one doesn't count, took it last week for my UK relo's Christmas card down at the beach - the whole Christmas in Summer idea

I'm thinking something with lights when I get a chance ...

hey, good idea, I took some at the beach last week

I'm hopeless at starting new threads, so glad you have 'cause I wanted to

wow I love that last one

Barkly is very photogenic

Last day today, last night I tried to photograph an almost full moon from my front lawn ...

I'm quite happy with this one, it did need some cropping ... all just black background, and I did some stuff in lightroom

again with my canon 400D using the 75-300mm @ 280mm ISO400 1/400 sec f/5.6

it definitely looks cleaner viewed at full size, the medium size is disappointing on here

I kept meaning to come in and say how much I love everyone's pics

beautiful looking cat rocco, love the last pic

tokkie: I can't believe you got a pic of a bee ;)

chezzyr: the butterfly is so clear, love the background too ... what do you mean by "grab shot"?

I like the reflections in the wheel, blue against pink, black and silver

anyway

.... blue background (kindly provided by my blue Tarago)....

I never woulda guessed that, handy!

I sat in my front yard for a little while yesterday afternoon, tried to avoid the roses, I seriously have in excess of 100 photos of roses that I've taken and edited and uploaded to photobucket since the beginning of October both from my front and back yards! (if anyone has missed me mention my total absorption in photography of late ) and I found a rock and a log of interest. To be honest I was actually out there looking for people, and no-one passed on foot, a couple of cars ... I supppose I live in a quiet street

Anyway, this is a rock in my front garden bed used as decoration ...

same camera but I went back to my 75mm-300mm for these

eta: I think the composition is a little off in these 2, but I like this one because it looks like it could be in a fish tank or something? and I like the second one because it looks like it could be a rhino's eye?

@ 255mm ISO 100 f/5.6 1/125

oh, and I like the inanimate objects at the moment, I like that I can use some heavy handed editing and it can still look okay, I do the same sort of editing on the dog pics and it mostly looks horrible

and this is an old twisted log that is also in my front garden bed and used as decoration ...

@ 300mm ISO 100 f/5.6 1/50

and I had to try the picket fence idea again:

@ 75mm ISO 100 f/4.0 1/500

I really like that last spider pic, very nice. I like the way the web is in focus from the bottom up and around in an arc

Nice rose too Mine seem to stay around forever, I have a lot to choose from, some are better than others :rolleyes:

I had a little practise today

I hope the post-production doesn't ruin it

taken at f/5.0 and 55mm - eyes out of focus, nose in focus, and background well out of focus

taken at f/9.0 and 41mm - much more even focus, but maybe I had my point of focus on his muzzle, between his eyes and his nose?

taken at f/9.0 again but lens at 21mm - focus is clear in at least his right eye and nose

another one at f/9.0 and lens at 25mm ...

I think f/9.0 has become my new practise thing. I've gotta get out of the habit of always keeping the aperture as shallow as possible

Nice roses piper I've been practising on the roses for the past month and a half. The red bush I have out the front is so red I can't seem to help myself

Canon400D lens f/3.5-5.6 18mm-55mm @ 55.0mm ISO 100 f/5.6 1/500

Chopper is looking very handsome out the front of your place ruth, I like the first in the grass pic too

I was going for a through-the-picket-fence type idea:

@ 47.0mm ISO 400 f/5.6 1/25

another and with a little lightroom editing:

@ 55.0mm ISO 400 f/5.6 1/15

Love your communication pics rocco

okay, good

note to self: take better pics, read up, and practise with patience

at least I know what I have to do now ... makes it easier to set a plan

photoshop terms are totally foreign to me

I had Corel Paintshop prox and I know they carry a lot of the same features as photoshop so I'm not sure of what people say they do with their photos is the same thing I think I was trying to do with paintshop prox.

I'm a terrible experimenter of photo editing programs, I try something with no help from anywhere, go: that was too hard, and move on to experimenting with something else. I often over contrast, over saturate, over brighten/darken and over sharpen with just the basics, I have minor understanding of the histogram and tone curve, and don't think I'm doing it right. Removing backgrounds, unless it is just to "clone"/"stamp" another part of the same photo, I can't do - have in the past tried but wasn't very happy with the results. I never learnt about layers and masks enough to use them effectively, either.

The other thing is that I seem to spend a lot of time editing photos, I enjoy doing it for the most part, but sometimes I wish it was quicker and better.

Is it worth spending money on a good photo-editing program?

And should I go with photoshop?

I'm currently trialling lightroom (thanks to ripley's thread) and I feel it lacks the extra bits and pieces, I like it for the basics, light colour etc., but if I wanted to really get rid of that background, I'd need to use and learn how to use photoshop or something similar, is that right?

Krislin..

Notice how the first has a smaller DOF than the second yet both were shot at f/3.5.

DOF is not just related to aperture (aka fstop), it's also related to focus distance.

All other things being equal, same focal length, same aperture, the closer the subject is, the smaller the DOF.

aha! that is something I didn't know as such, very useful bit of information, thanks

I keep taking these head shots of my dogs with their eyes in focus and their noses out of focus (when looking at me), I don't like them. I always seem to just choose the shallowest aperture and zoom in as close as I can get, because I'm just thinking I do not want that background to be in focus, right?

So what I would have to do is open up the aperture a bit, what up to 6.5 or 7.1 ???? ... that way my background of fence-line and dirty long green/yellow weeds and grass etc. keeps out of focus while my dogs' noses as well as their eyes are sharp, is that correct?

As it stands, if I choose to step back a pace or so, I'm not filling the frame big enough with the dog, there is too much cropping room, and the lens doesn't zoom that far, but if I did that I would need to get back down to the shallowest depth of field possible, which as we have discussed here is at 55mm to f5.6? Would that have the same effect of ensuring my dogs eyes as well as their noses stay in focus with the background out of focus?

I'm not sure I fully understand any of what I just wrote ... help

oh, and that 50mm 1.8 sounds like something I should get my hands on

Another Challenge ..... does that mean someone else will enter besides Clicking Mad and me.

Nice topic's though.

nah, my dog's are fine, Chester is a natural poser ... it's my photographic skills that are lacking ... and all I can do in photo editing is to overdo the colours, brightness and saturation with any amount of skill

didn't get any better flying Jamie and frisbee pics

but just 'cause I took it and I like it and it's last day of this challenge, here's Chester and the frisbee yesterday

lens @ 55m ISO400 f/7.1 1/160

haven't been particularly inspired lately

very nice

I took another bunch today they may or may not be better, but this is the best flying Jamie and frisbee attempts from yesterday. She gets up high but she isn't exactly elegant

Lens @ 49mm ISO 100 f/5.6 1/500

sorry I know, old theme, but I'm just really trying to get better at these 'cause most of the time they turn out no good. Oh didn't use a tripod and didn't even look through the view finder, did make sure the lighting was acceptable (not sure I got it right) but it's hard to throw a frisbee and manage a camera. Once I got my mother to throw the frisbee for us, it ended up on the garage roof within 2 or 3 throws

oo and I think it looks like an eye because the fern tree fronds just cross into the edges of the whites of the eye, resembling eye lashes ... I'm liking it more and more

edited: to swap photos to a different edit

I like that rocco

if you just quickly glance at it, it kinda, possibly looks like it could be an eye - am I the only one who sees that?

I love your plastic bag pic rocco

I attached a plastic bag as a filter and pointed at the sun

ISO 100 18mm f.22 1/8

sandwich maker, I like the sweating

ISO 100 33mm f.20 1.6

juicer

ISO 100 55mm f.5.6 1

ISO 100 39mm f.9.0 2

I tried for a shot of the progression from whole fresh fruit and vegies through the juicer and then the end result that I feed my dogs, but it didn't turn out.

I was gonna do the coffee maker pic - still might give it a go tomorrow morning

and Jamie isn't co-operating with the frisbee hahaha ... at least that's my excuse

.... this canon comp is an understatement

You're good, I haven't got to it yet.

not so good when I fail to pay my bills on time because I spent the afternoon after work trying for new ribbon pics yesterday

oh and I meant to mention earlier that I'm going to go "flying disc" mad with Jamie for this challenge, I've been trying to get a good frisbee pic with her for ages, just another excuse to try again

I picked an item last time, but since it's been 3 days

item #3 plastic bag

I've already taken some kitchen appliance pics, but haven't gone anywhere near them since, to say I'm obsessed with this canon comp is an understatement