The Meager Attempts of Yet Another Guy With a Camera. (Image-heavy, obviously.)

[Man of Steel]

Well, I was able to get out today and take what I feel to be some pretty decent pictures. Seeing as I'm sure I'll be taking a lot more, I decided to make my own thread dedicated to my progressive learning of just exactly how to operate my camera, and use it to take the kind of pictures that I firmly believe it is capable of. So, both because I don't want to bore whoever may be reading this, and because I can't really think of anything else to say, here are the pictures, without further ado (I apologize for the number; I just couldn't quite bring myself to post any fewer, because I like all of these. There are fourteen, out of the 26 I took, four of which were out of focus.): I'd really appreciate some comments, and any tips any of you may have. This is my first really decent camera, and as such, these are pretty much my first halfway serious pictures. I had my camera set to manual settings, I can elaborate if anyone needs/wants to know. I'm just fiddling with the settings, trying to find what works best.

[meggyfayephotography]

Very nice MoS for your first attempt at some serious pictures with your new camera. Play around with the menu settings, A LOT! Get to know your camera inside and out. There are so many things you can do with your camera, even if it's not fancy like a professional camera. The exposure on some of the pictures seems a bit too high, which is why there as much detail in the flowers as there could be. Even though the camera has auto focus and auto exposure, doesn't mean you can't change the exposure settings manually to make the picture better. The difference between a snapshot and a photograph is the content, the photographer's eye. You're good, buddy, and I think after a while you'll be great! Keep up the good work! Can't wait to see more!

[Man of Steel]

Thanks, Meggy! And thanks so much for the tips, I'm learning more about this thing every day. I got out today and took a few more, nothing too great, but I'll post them anyway: This is a piece of mock amber from a set of chimes, that came unattached. I'm holding it in my left hand and taking the picture with my right, so that's why it didn't really turn out so well. Just a leaf of a weed in a planter on my porch. These turned out pretty good, I think. I managed to get the angle I was aiming for, at least. I liked the way the light hit this leaf, but it didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped it would. And that's all I was able to get today.

[meggyfayephotography]

The first photograph is really cool! I wish you would have gotten more of it in the frame though. And the mushrooms are really cool!!!

[bro]

Man Of Steel, Man Of Steel, you do have a way. I really quite enjoyed your pictures, but I'll be honest, not so much the ones of the flowers, but a few you took of a bright green jutting stem, with leaves, in contrast to the brown ground. The mushrooms as MeggyFayPhotograhy said are indeed very interesting, and I love your use of the macro setting. I'm no expert by any means, but do be careful about overexposure as it seems to ruin an otherwise good photo. Another thing I've noticed is that cropping a photo sometimes makes it more interesting to the eye, I saw that in some of yours which was good, really not to have everything in dead center...just my 2 cents (or 20) Anyway, Meggy knows her stuff well it seems, (as one would guess) so listen to the wise ones (and me, I'm fairly wise as well ) Well done

[Man of Steel]

Thanks for the comments! Yeah, I was in a hurry with that one, Meggy. My hands weren't really steady, either. I did get one other shot of it, though, with it more centered; but my fingers are in that one. Thanks, Bro. I appreciate it. I've done a bit more reading on the subject, and I've got a bigger memory card and rechargeable batteries on the way, so expect more pictures before long. Edit: Here's that other one, Meggy:

[meggyfayephotography]

Hope you don't mind. I took the liberty of editing some of your pics. A true photographer will shoot things in a way people wouldn't think to view them to a normal eye. Even if you can't exactly shoot the object like this, just have fun with cropping. You're the photographer, it's your work of art. Do with it as you must. Just a few ideas/examples I have: For objects that are interesting, get really close. Make the shot about the image. If the object is interesting, make the shot interesting. This was a really good shot. Lots of nice detail on the cap of the mushroom. Make sure not to leave too much empty space(as in the grass/dirt). Crop it so it balances itself out. If you leave too much of the grassy/dirt area showing, then you lose focus that its all about the mushroom. But make sure you leave enough of the grass and dirt showing so you can still get the feel that it's truly a nature shot and its in a forested area. Again, with the interesting objects and cropping it to make it look more interesting. And making it all about the object. You had some very creative lines with those leaves, cropping it tighter will make the lines show a lot better. Same thing I've been saying for the images above. The flower was small and you left a lot of the wooded area in the shot. Takes away from the beauty of the flower. I'd really like for you to take this constructive criticism into consideration. It's one thing for a person to see something, it's another for a photographer to see it as art. I can't wait to see what you post next! (gosh, i should be a teacher... )

[Man of Steel]

No, I don't mind at all! I really appreciate you taking the time to teach me a few things, in fact. I will definitely take these points to mind, and work on them. I especially like what you did with the third pic, and the mushroom too. You're right, by cropping the picture, it really brought out the patterns/lines of the leaves. I don't know how much time I'll have this week for messing about with my camera, but hopefully I'll be able to get some more pictures taken/uploaded by Wednesday at the latest. My rechargeable batteries should be here by then, anyway; alkalines don't last very long. I've done a little more reading and delving into the subject, and can't wait to do some real experimenting. I'll work on refining the images in the GIMP, too. Obviously, I haven't yet taken the time to do that with the shots I've taken thus far, I just resized/resampled them with IrfanView and uploaded them. I'll do some playing around with what I've already got taken, though, to practice on, as I've gotten out of practice with actual photo editing. I used to be great with Photoshop, until I had to reformat the old desktop. Now's a good time to get that skill back, with the GIMP. So I will most certainly take your (very) constructive comments into consideration, and do my best to act on them. Hopefully, I can get more shots taken on Wednesday; the rest of my week is pretty much booked, unfortunately. Thank you so much, Meggy, it means a lot to me that you've taken the time out of your day to help a fledgling amateur like myself. (And yes, you should!)

[Man of Steel]

I was able to get out a bit today and get a few pictures of my neighbors horses, as well as a couple more macro shots. This time I ran most of them through a quick crop and/or level adjust in the GIMP before I uploaded them. Without further ado (Yes, I really do just like saying that.): I really should have uploaded the original of this, too. I edited out a power pole and lines, and a bit of the roadside which showed at the right, and adjusted the levels. I think this one turned out pretty good, much better than I'd thought. I took out a power line and adjusted the levels on this one too. I think I forgot to mess around with the levels in this one, so it's untouched. Same with this one. Shame, because they could have benefited from it. I may edit the originals, re-upload and edit this later. I probably should have cropped this one, but I was having trouble deciding just how I wanted to do that, so I wound up leaving it alone. This is just a grass stem beside the road, kinda down in the ditch. I really liked the way the afternoon sun shone through it, and wanted to try something similar to Gnome's shots (Not trying to be a copycat, I just liked those shots a lot. ). I found this little spider right beside where I took the last shot. I was pretty excited to find him; believe it or not, this is the first time I've actually seen a spider killing and eating another bug. At first I thought the bug it had was a flying ant, but I think it was actually a sweat bee. He/she/it was very cooperative for me, but unfortunately the way the flower was growing in the side of the ditch, I couldn't really get around to get a frontal angle. The lighting wasn't cooperating with me, either. The spider was tiny, it's body was smaller than my pinky nail. This one got a slightly better angle, I think. You can see the markings on the spider's back much better, though it took some messing about with the color levels to bring them out. They were really light/faint, and as you can see, the spider's thorax and legs are translucent. Though I couldn't really tell it at the time, I got a bad glare off of the white petals of the flower, which didn't help any. Let me know what y'all think, and thanks for looking! I'm still working on exposure settings, I fiddled around with them a bit today, but I couldn't really see what effect it had until I got into the car, because of the the sunlight on the LCD screen. I know the exposure was a bit high on several of these. The only ones of these that I cropped were those of the spider, I think. I did mess around a bit more with the GIMP, and I'm pleased to say that I haven't forgotten everything. I was still a bit rushed today, partly because apparently the batteries I used were already partially drained, or something, because I had a low battery warning almost from the time I put them in. And I'm still limited in the number of pictures I can take with this SD card; 16 pictures at the medium quality setting. My 2 GB card should be here Wednesday, as well as my other batteries, though, so all is well. Tomorrow is a busy day, anyway. But I'm rambling now... Anyhow, let me know what you think, and thanks again.

[Michael]

The first one of the spider catching a bee on the flower is very nice (look how it made its web on the flower). The first horse picture is pretty good too. Im not an artist, thats just my opinion.

[meggyfayephotography]

That first horse shot is amazing! I like that you don't have a lot of the sky in the shot, and more of the grass. The sunlight makes it look very soft, which I also like because it makes the horses give off a feeling to me that is calm. The grass picture... if you're not sure how it should be cropped, then there's that possiblitly that it doesn't need to be cropped at all I think it wouldn't look better cropped. It's very nice! And the last two pics... Spiders creep me out, fully and entirely creep me out! But they are really cool! I like the second one a lot more because of the angle you shot it at! Keep up the good work little buddy! Fantastic job!

[will.i.am]

Well done sir, well done. You must have a really nice camera, to get up that close. I always have to use a mini-tripod for my close ups. What kind of camera do you use?

[Man of Steel]

That first horse shot is amazing! I like that you don't have a lot of the sky in the shot, and more of the grass. The sunlight makes it look very soft, which I also like because it makes the horses give off a feeling to me that is calm. The grass picture... if you're not sure how it should be cropped, then there's that possiblitly that it doesn't need to be cropped at all I think it wouldn't look better cropped. It's very nice! And the last two pics... Spiders creep me out, fully and entirely creep me out! But they are really cool! I like the second one a lot more because of the angle you shot it at! Keep up the good work little buddy! Fantastic job! Thanks! Wow, I'm speechless at all this praise. You're going to give me a big head! Is it bad that I'm actually using the first horse picture as a wallpaper right now? And I'm thinking you're right, I should leave the grass pic as is. Anyhow, thanks again, Meggy. You're the best! Oh, and I got my 2GB SD card today, () but I'm still waiting on the batteries. So no more pictures now till Friday, probably. Well done sir, well done. You must have a really nice camera, to get up that close. I always have to use a mini-tripod for my close ups. What kind of camera do you use? Why thank you, Will. The camera is a Canon Powershot A560, and I must say, it does have a good macro function. I don't have a tripod yet, but I'm keeping an eye out for one used.

[meggyfayephotography]

I think it's cool to use your own photography as your desktop pictures. I have one of my llama pictures from the Pittsburgh Zoo as mine! Oh, and you don't have to tell me I'm the best. I already know that. Can't wait to see more when your new batteries come in.

[Man of Steel]

Well, my batteries got here today, they are charging in their cradle as I type. I was out all day, didn't get home till about 5:30-ish, and the package from Newegg was waiting on my porch. I put 'em to charging straight away. In the meantime, I took a few quick shots of one of my knives, for two reasons; one, I wanted to try out the little mini-tripod that came free with the batteries, thanks to some deal Newegg had, and two, because I hadn't yet taken any black-and-white shots, and wanted to give that a try. So I attached the camera to the mini-tripod -- which is actually pretty nifty, as long as you don't tilt the camera much -- adjusted the exposure down just a bit, set it to B&W, and laid my knife (a Benchmade 10210 Mini-Ambush) on the table I use for my laptop. I had to put the front legs of the tripod on the manual for the camera to get the right angle without overbalancing the thing, but it worked. I set the timer to two seconds to null camera shake, and starting taking pictures at the highest quality setting. And this is what I got: Opinions?

[Man of Steel]

Just links to these, cause I didn't resize them. I have a ton more, but I can't upload them all yet. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...-wallpaper.jpg http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...-wallpaper.jpg http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...-wallpaper.jpg

[jaasum]

Opinions? Benchmade kicks ass.

[bro]

I'm liking your stuff, I'm not sure what to say about them professionally, but it can't hurt to keep playing around with this newfound hobby.

[Xox]

I love these pics, your skill is developing as you post more (as time goes on). My advice to you is that you should try out different location and things. And just keep on taking flicks so you develop as a photographer. You're getting really good already.

[Man of Steel]

Opinions? Benchmade kicks ass. Hell yes. I'm liking your stuff, I'm not sure what to say about them professionally, but it can't hurt to keep playing around with this newfound hobby. Thanks, bro. I shall definitely continue to mess around. I love these pics, your skill is developing as you post more (as time goes on). My advice to you is that you should try out different location and things. And just keep on taking flicks so you develop as a photographer. You're getting really good already. Wow, thanks, Xox. Yeah, I'm on vacation, so hopefully plenty of cool pic opportunities will present themselves. Here are a few I took a week or so ago, and just now got uploaded. I didn't resize them down to forum size, but they have been cropped and adjusted in the GIMP. I took these at my sister's house; she has a great yard for pictures. Click on the thumbnails for the full-size image. 1.) 2.) 3.) 4.) 5.) 6.) 7.) 8.) 9.) 10.) 11.) Let me know what y'all think. I'm pretty proud of these, especially number 8, and the ones with the sunlight shining through the body and legs of the grasshopper.

[Xox]

Omgeesh! Beautiful pictures Mos! I love them! And, I can see that you are getting better and better

[Lord Toaster]

WOW! Very nice insect pictures MoS... I like the knife ones as well. Quite artistic The horse ones at the top look like they're straight off some horse calender lol, good job Oh and the one that's not a bit like Gnome's is very nice as well. Keep it up

[Man of Steel]

Thanks, guys. I finally got those pictures uploaded, here they are. Click on the thumbnail for the larger version. Continued in next post...

[Man of Steel]

Some of these aren't really as good as previous ones, but I figured I'd post 'em anyhow. Others I'm really proud of, such as the one in black & white of my dad, and the second-to-last one. Yeah, I know there are a lot, but I've been really remiss in posting pictures as I take them, so...

[meggyfayephotography]

very nice dear, i like the b&w of your dad, and the mailboxes. but you should crop the mailbox photo on the top and bottom. make it about the mailboxes... you make mommy proud, love!