first pic ever, pointers?

[dunkyg99]

hey folks, i finally managed to take a pic with my new fz18! i know its not going to win me any prizes but i thought id show you all it anyway! haha. it was taken from my window 1 floor up and the feeders about 25ish meters away. it was taken with my new (and first camera ever) fz18 on auto mode. weather was a bit overcast so im quite happy with it although, ive a long way to go til im up to the main Gallery standard!!



feel free to comment/ advise.

Dunk.

[Geoff F]

Your image is reasonably sharp but has a colour problem. Possibly too high an ISO to compensate for bad light or an editing software problem. Maybe due to excessive resizing or too much compression.

Give your shooting details, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc and how you have edited it and somebody will be able to advise.

I don't think it is a major fault. How do the colours look straight from the camera?

[Bub-les]

Not a bad piccie at all. I've had a look at the exif info and it appears that you have the white balance set to Tungsten this explains the colour cast. I would suggest changing the setting to auto or daylight.
You may be able to alter you photo in the software you use to process your image.
Hope that helps
Barbara

[dunkyg99]

heres the original (although ive cropped it cos it was too big to upload)



the shutter was at 1/100, f5.6 and iso200. thats all i know, oh and i had it on manual, not auto!! white balance? now your confusing me!! haha. dont worry i'll read the manual!! hope the original helps with your pointers. obviously being closer will help.

cheers for now, Dunk.

[dunkyg99]

oh, i got adobe photoshop cs2 tonight and its also my first time editing photos, this photography thing sure is complicated!!!! think my brains fused, off for a snooz to recover........

[Dan Salter]

Originally you said it was shot on Auto? in which case the camera should have done all the thinking for you which is bad if it came up with this colouring?...but now you say you had it on MANUAL which is where you are supposed to set everything....shutter speed, iso, aperture etc etc...and by the looks of things you had it set to tungsten lighting?...

Try again in a day or so and set the camera to fully auto ( until you learn the ropes) ...i still use full auto most of the time on this new ( to me) camera....

Also be warned serious cropping, zooming using software and resizing all deteriorates the image quality and sharpness....try and do ALL the hard work, framing, composition and get as close as possible at the photo stage...and do as little fixing as possible afterwards...i have to crop sometimes for bird shots...sure....but never by too much to lose any clarity or detail...

Other than that your on the right road...like you say its a huge learning curve but its fun and the photographer peeps here will help you !

Oh and lastly...as much as its a techy selling tool....Digital zoom ( as apposed to the normal optical zoom) should be avoided....its a hard one to explain ...but if your fz is like mine ( fz30) it has 12x optical zoom which is fine...zoom away...but it has an optional more powerful digital zoom..but all this does is basically crop and re crop the image losing detail every time so steer clear unless its for a last resort "record" shot of a rare bird for id or something?...hope this makes sense?

Dan

[sleipnerofasgard]

following advice that i have been given over the last few months i would say your shutter speed needs to be faster for a sharper pic this of course woule raise your iso but at 200 it could afford to go up to about 400 which should speed up your shutter otherwise wait for a sunny day ,there will be one promise

[Dan Salter]

Originally Posted by sleipnerofasgard

following advice that i have been given over the last few months i would say your shutter speed needs to be faster for a sharper pic this of course woule raise your iso but at 200 it could afford to go up to about 400 which should speed up your shutter otherwise wait for a sunny day ,there will be one promise

I agree....but for someone who is just using their FIRST EVER camera i think they should go fully auto mode for now and concentrate on patience, framing and composition, camera angle, where the sun is etc....thinking about all the manual settings at this stage is too difficult and will turn people off....

[Pete Collins]

Hi dunkyg99,

I've already posted a comment on your photo in the Gallery. I think it's quite good for a first shot, considering you were 25m away. Obviously, the closer you get to the birds, the better your shots will be.

The FZ18 has a very good 'Intelligent Auto' mode, and as Dan says you may want to stick to using that initially. I got a nice shot of a treecreeper using that mode the other day. But following the advice of glsammy and several others, for most of my bird photos I usually use A mode (aperture priority) with an aperture of 4.2. (If you switch to A mode and then set the aperture to f4.2, the camera remembers the settings so that next time you switch to A mode the aperture will already be set to 4.2)

The FZ18 has an 18x zoom, but if you reduce the resolution from 8.1Mp to 5Mp the zoom increases to 23x, and up to 28.7x at 3Mp (Note: this is optical zoom - don't use the further 4X digital zoom, it's better to enlarge the photo on your PC). This extra zoom facility can help with small birds or ones that are far away.

Good luck with your photography - I hope you have as much fun with your FZ18 as I've been having with mine! I posted a thread this morning with some of my recent bird photos.

Pete

[Dan Salter]

Originally Posted by Pete Collins

Hi dunkyg99,

I've already posted a comment on your photo in the Gallery. I think it's quite good for a first shot, considering you were 25m away. Obviously, the closer you get to the birds, the better your shots will be.

The FZ18 has a very good 'Intelligent Auto' mode, and as Dan says you may want to stick to using that initially. I got a nice shot of a treecreeper using that mode the other day. But following the advice of glsammy and several others, for most of my bird photos I usually use A mode (aperture priority) with an aperture of 4.2. (If you switch to A mode and then set the aperture to f4.2, the camera remembers the settings so that next time you switch to A mode the aperture will already be set to 4.2)

The FZ18 has an 18x zoom, but if you reduce the resolution from 8.1Mp to 5Mp the zoom increases to 23x, and up to 28.7x at 3Mp (Note: this is optical zoom - don't use the further 4X digital zoom, it's better to enlarge the photo on your PC). This extra zoom facility can help with small birds or ones that are far away.

Good luck with your photography - I hope you have as much fun with your FZ18 as I've been having with mine! I posted a thread this morning with some of my recent bird photos.

Pete

Pete, run through that zoom bit again?....so ..on my FZ30 which i have always set on 8mp...are you saying that if i go down to 5 or less mp that the OPTICAL zoom increases?....i didnt know this...how though? surely for the optical zoom to change it is then not optical but digital?...and also how much quality is lost going down to 5 or less mp?....

Also...this anti hand shake thing? i can never notice any difference wether it is on or off ? i was running through all my setting on it last night and i think i could do with you or Mattxyz or someone to tell me what to set it all too for maximum quality?...there are some things that are like...3 blocks.... 6 blocks or infinity? ( i think its the handshake thing) ...whats best setting?

Dan
Dan