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Glad to help. There is nothing wrong with taking pictures in automatic. You would switch to another mode under the following conditions:

a) Aperture priority - When you want to ensure lots of blur, youd set to smallest F number. i.e. F3.5 for kit lens. This is good for portraits and when you want to isolate a target and make the picture more 3Dish. On the other hand, you'd set to F8 or F11 if you want to minimize blur, such as a landscape shot.

b) Shutter priority - This is generally just used for freezing motion. Your camera will try to get you a reasonable speed such as 1/30 at wide angle or a bit faster if zoomed in. However it doesn't know if you are taking a picture of a racecar or a landscape, right? 1/30 is fine for landscape, but awful for a moving car. Therefore you would make the shutter faster if you are taking a picture of a faster moving subject. That makes sense, right?

c) manual - Rarely used, only when you want to control the ISO, shutter AND aperture. One example would be a picture of a waterfall where you want foreground blur. You'd want F4ish for landscape with some blur, AND a 2 second exposure time. You'd use a neutral density filter (sunglasses for your camera) to darken the shot as 2 seconds lets in a ton of light.
 
Shane Burton said:
My sensor must be dirty , it wasn't raining at the time.

I love what you did thats exactly the type of clo:-)udy weather we have had lately.
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There are many tips on cleaning the sensor here on the forum. But the basics are not trying to swap lenses in dodgy conditions - sand, windy, rainy etc. and always face the camera down whilst doing that.

Thank you - just added clarity, sharpness, played with the tone curve a little bit and split toning. As others have said, Lightroom is a good option if you are looking to organise your pictures as well.
 
Thanks Dave, after looking at my original picture I see the slope you are talking about. I then looked at the same picture that had been corrected.

A valueable lesson, thanks for bringing it to my attention.



Larry
 
Shane Burton said:
42a0db47eeee44bc9258171a2497d389.jpg
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As people have said, there are several things you can do better when taking the photo. But there is a lot more detail in the basic file if you know how to get to it. This isn't the place for a big lesson on processing - that's something you'll need to develop slowly - but here's something to show what you could pull out with a bit of practice.

66a10fcd6c9247b098cc75b8f3621cd1.jpg








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Gerry
_______________________________________
First camera 1953, first Pentax 1985, first DSLR 2006
www.pbase.com

Galleries by Gerry Winterbourne

www.pbase.com
[email protected]
 
It's %80 the aperture, f/22 in most lenses produce soft photos.
%20 for not focusing well and for the cloudy day (sure it will be a dull photo in cloudy days)
Try to take photos with f/16 max. And keep the camera on Av mode for better in camera metering if you are not an expert.
A little post processing will fix this photo anyway
 
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Shane Burton said:
Wow Gerry that is such an improvment. Maybe one day I will be able to do that.:-)
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Hi Larry,

You'd be amazed how easy it is to make improvements. It all depends on what pp software you have of course, I use Lightroom, but I think you could be doing something inside a few days. I am no expert, but this took about five minutes work in Lightroom. I haven't done so much work on the sky, but I have also cropped the sky back to around 1/3, which usually gives a better balanced image. At the end of the day, it's what you like that matters!

Dave

http://davidedric.smugmug.com/photos/i-vGTjvXS/0/X2/i-vGTjvXS-X2.jpg
 
Dave Stott said:
Shane Burton said:
Wow Gerry that is such an improvment. Maybe one day I will be able to do that.
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You'd be amazed how easy it is to make improvements. It all depends on what pp software you have of course, I use Lightroom, but I think you could be doing something inside a few days.
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I also use LightRoom, but even Picasa will do a satisfactory fix in seconds, certainly good enough to demonstrate an effect for DPR. Slowest part is the download/Upload.

Here's everything that I could think of in Picasa and it took about 30 seconds:



748788801ab5474fb77ff111cf1d54ac.jpg
 
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MarshallG said:
MarshallG said:
Thank you for your feedback. First I thought that by using f22 my picture would be sharp throughout the picture. Second I read when shooting in cloudy conditions bump up your ISO.

I'm going to go take another picture and post using the information you explained so good.

I see my camera shooting skills are pretty shabby after talking to you. Thank you again so much for the info.

Larry
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You're doing exactly what you need to do in order to learn
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4b7b6a6c60914f67958b960fa1c07eaf.jpg



Good afternoon LynniePad, I have been practicing different suggestions from this post. I don't have any wat to do a post correction on my photos. What do you think I could have done different in taking this photo? Some of my pictures turn out pretty good but I do find some are washed out from the sun.

Thanks

Larry
 
Shane Burton said:
4b7b6a6c60914f67958b960fa1c07eaf.jpg


Good afternoon LynniePad, I have been practicing different suggestions from this post. I don't have any way to do a post correction on my photos. What do you think I could have done different in taking this photo?
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It looks a bit overexposed to me. Have you tried some of the free photo programs like Picasa?

This is what I did to your photo with a little bit of a play with the sliders:



961eab2703b24509bd043533dc859aad.jpg
 
Shane Burton said:
42a0db47eeee44bc9258171a2497d389.jpg


This picture apears not as sharp as I thought it would. This is a field of soybeans, I was shooting im manual ISO 500, WB set to cloudy, aperature was f22. I am shooting with a Canon 60D with a 15-85 lens.Can someone give me some on input on what I could have done different?

Thanks

Larry
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If it was sunny, you would shoot this at F16, 1/100 sec, iso 100.Your shot is 1 stop overexposed if it was sunny, but it was cloudy. I would have shot it as F11, 1/60 sec, iso 100. And if slightly underexposed, when viewing the histogram, I would add + 1/3 ev as necessary.

Anyway, as shot, this is a good image. The problem is there is no contrast, due to the cloudiness that was present. Using photoshop, you could easily brighten up the picture as shot.

But since it was cloudy, he have to give it more exposure. Say F16, 1/50 sec, iso 200 or some other combination if the shutter speed is too low to hand hold, which would be a + 2 EV. You have shot is
 
Hello Mike,
I have a question about the apertures. I too am a beginner & I was out walking around trying to learn the correlation of ISO/aperture/shutter speed. I was using some small apertures, i.e. f16-22. My photos were not tack sharp. I think my shutter was too slow, or my hands were unsteady. But I was told diffraction was the problem.

I was using those apertures because I wanted a large DoF. I have been reading some photo magazines, one in front of me now & he's got a gorgeous photo using f/29! He was also using a tripod (I don't have one yet). How does he use such a small aperture & have such a beautifully sharp image???

For what it's worth, I am using a brand new Fuji X-E1 w 18-55 lens.
 
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Hivona said:
Hello Mike,
I have a question about the apertures. I too am a beginner & I was out walking around trying to learn the correlation of ISO/aperture/shutter speed. I was using some small apertures, i.e. f16-22. My photos were not tack sharp. I think my shutter was too slow, or my hands were unsteady. But I was told diffraction was the problem.

I was using those apertures because I wanted a large DoF. I have been reading some photo magazines, one in front of me now & he's got a gorgeous photo using f/29! He was also using a tripod (I don't have one yet). How does he use such a small aperture & have such a beautifully sharp image?
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Slow shutter would likely be a problem at f/22; depending on ISO and image stabilisation, of course.

For a mid-sized camera such as yours, the "sweet spot" will be somewhere between f/4 and f/11, depending on the lens. Beyond f/11, diffraction starts to take over; that's an effect due to the wave nature of light.

The guy using the f/29 was probably using a large-format camera; was there a brand of camera mentioned? On the other hand, most compact cameras don't have an aperture smaller than f/8.

You are doing the logical thing by testing various combinations of Aperture and Shutter Speed. Good idea is to leave ISO at base level and do your tests where there is good light. Do some tests in Aperture priority, and a second set of tests in Shutter priority to help you work out that relationship.

Once you have that part worked out, turn on Auto-ISO and try some low-light conditions. There should be some parameters in the Auto-ISO menu to control the base level, the maximum level, and the shutter speed when Auto-ISO boost comes into play. Often, the critical shutter speed is automatically linked to lens focal length.

Here's a link where I posted a couple of images shot near the extremes of shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/53935085
 
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Lynnie is correct, at what aperture diffraction begins is a function of sensor size.

So a micro four thirds camera will start to show diffraction when stopped down below f/8.

An APS-C camera will start to show diffraction when stopped down below f/11.

A full frame camera will start to show diffraction when stopped down below f/16.

The good news is that cameras with smaller sensors have more depth of field, so they don't need to be stopped down as much to obtain the desired depth of field.

Learn more about diffraction and depth of field here:

Cambridge in Colour - LENS DIFFRACTION & PHOTOGRAPHY

DOFMaster - Depth of Field Calculator
 
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