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Lots of good things about this, including sound choice of aperture and shutter speed/ISO - and the darkening in editing.
I wanted to try an alternative crop, so I started from your 'before' shot. I adjusted Levels, darkening midtones, and cropped square with the snail well offcentre.
I love the combination of straight and curly lines, and the suggestions in the background.
I wanted to try an alternative crop, so I started from your 'before' shot. I adjusted Levels, darkening midtones, and cropped square with the snail well offcentre.
I love the combination of straight and curly lines, and the suggestions in the background.
Well done for taking the diagonals into the corners. John's crop makes good use of that line, it suggests a long journey to climb.
Moira
Moira
Quite good. The snails original placement I think works best.
Settings make sense in general, however, I personally find it difficult to hand-hold a 50mm lens (effectively 75mm on your camera), at 1/100, so I would prefer faster, so ISO higher, 250 or so. You increase the chance of a sharp shot by eliminating any slight, tiny camera shake.
This needs a lot of sharpening, and it might well be just that a faster shutter was needed.
The mod increases contrast (likely low due to time of day), and is sharpened significantly. The sharpening is effective, which suggests the focus was fine.
Regards
Willie
Settings make sense in general, however, I personally find it difficult to hand-hold a 50mm lens (effectively 75mm on your camera), at 1/100, so I would prefer faster, so ISO higher, 250 or so. You increase the chance of a sharp shot by eliminating any slight, tiny camera shake.
This needs a lot of sharpening, and it might well be just that a faster shutter was needed.
The mod increases contrast (likely low due to time of day), and is sharpened significantly. The sharpening is effective, which suggests the focus was fine.
Regards
Willie
Thanks guys, the reason that I cropped it so tight was that when I viewed the photograph on the computer there's a white twig in the right hand corner that drew my attention straight to it, obviously when that happens that is all that you see.
Using the aperture priority was fun, going to go out tomorrow and have another play, thanks for the advice all.
All the best,
Mat
Using the aperture priority was fun, going to go out tomorrow and have another play, thanks for the advice all.
All the best,
Mat
The diagonal composition looks good.
I'd say the softness is due to camera movement so Willie's suggestion of a higher ISO is good. Stalks and stems often move too unless the air is motionless, so a faster shutter speed is always welcome from that point of view too even if your camera is on the most firm of supports.
Aperture is probably the best compromise between lens performance, depth of field and rendering the background siufficiently unobtrusive.
It's a small subject and if you want to do more and get the best then a set of extension tubes would be a worhtwhile purchase allowing you to get in closer without cropping and thus maintain image quality. Cheaper than a dedicated macro lens. But even more important then to keep an aye on the shutter speed.
I'd say the softness is due to camera movement so Willie's suggestion of a higher ISO is good. Stalks and stems often move too unless the air is motionless, so a faster shutter speed is always welcome from that point of view too even if your camera is on the most firm of supports.
Aperture is probably the best compromise between lens performance, depth of field and rendering the background siufficiently unobtrusive.
It's a small subject and if you want to do more and get the best then a set of extension tubes would be a worhtwhile purchase allowing you to get in closer without cropping and thus maintain image quality. Cheaper than a dedicated macro lens. But even more important then to keep an aye on the shutter speed.
