I think I'm getting the hang of this...

[Anonymous]

Okay, I adjusted some settings on my camera and really tried to take some good pics. Please feel free to rip me apart with friendly constructive criticism.

Here are a few pics to start (the ones I personally thought were most interesting)...I have many more to show.

Ricordea Vortex :

Ricordea Mountain :

Monster Snail :

Red Snowflakes :

Lazy Shroom :

I welcome all comments, and would appreciate technical/composition advice, as well. Thanks very much! I love this forum!

Peace,

Chip

 

[Anonymous]

Chip, those pics are great. I think you should tell US what you tweaked on your cam. I really like the first pic, Ricordia Vortex. The blurred perimeter really draws the eyes into the center. Really nice.

Regards, Eric

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the compliments, Eric.

From what I can remember (my mind is shot this morning, as usual), I first went in and disabled all the 'automatic' image enhancement that my camera does. Most of these settings were set to 'auto' such as sharpening, etc.

Next, I increased the shutter speed and adjusted the white balance from 'automatic' to 'fluorescent'. This seemed to fix my color problem, since I was focusing on my ricordea at the time.

Then I just tried to pay attention to what the shot was made up of. I've been inspired by some of the composition in the shots on this board, and was just trying to make things look different and interesting.

I still don't have a tripod, but I'll be looking at purchasing one of those next week. Until then, I'm going to try and work on my fish - I still can't seem to get a clear shot of any of them, and I only have 5 of them to photograph.

Actually, I run the marine department of my local pet shop, so there are tons of fish and corals I can shoot. I may stop by there tonight (I'm off from work) and take pics of all the corals we have in stock.

Here's another ricordea shot :

Peace,

Chip

 

[Anonymous]

Those Ricordea closeups are especially nice.

 

[shalegac]

You guys make me want to buy a camera! Awesome pics Chip. Keep up the good work.

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, from a technical standpoint, your shots are only getting better and better! Overall, very nice work here, Chip.

I'll toss out a couple comments about composition. I think you're improving by leaps and bounds here, too. One thing that I do notice, though, is that you cut the edges off of things pretty often. That's not exactly a no-no, as tight crops can work really well to add emphasis, draw the eye to a certain area, etc. But when you're obviously trying to show an entire specimen of say for example an anemone, and the tips of 3 or 4 tentacles are cut off by the frame, that's not something you notice right off, but as you get more seriously into photography, that's one of the things that separates a good photo from a great photo. It's really easy to see with photos of fish...would you think a picture of a yellow tang that had part of the 'snout' of the fish cut off would be as good as one where the tang filled the whole frame and didn't leave any off? With corals, though, it seems like that's harder to see unless you really train your eye to look for it.

I'm not sure if I rambled around in a circle there; I only got about an hour's sleep last night (that damned hockey game went to 5 OT!!!!), so please let me know if I need to clarify more.

Also, one pretty minor thing. On one of your shots (I think it was the 2nd one), you have a large section of the ricordea out of the DOF in the lower section of the frame. I really really like DOF control in macros like that, but on that particular one I think I'd crop some of it off the bottom, as it kind of draws the eye away from the primary subject (the upper area of the frame).

Cheers,
John

 

[Anonymous]

Here are the rest of the shots I took that day...figured I'd post them before I forgot I had them.

Capnella :

Paddle Leather (I see what you're talking about on the cropping, Sharkky) :

Pom-Pom Xenia :

Stick Zoanthus :

Torch Tentacles :

Orange Ricordea Yuma :

Clown Triggermobile :

Peace,

Chip

 

[altyfc]

Wow, guys... there's some excellent detail in these pics!

Aaron