1st pics with Pan. FZ8

[picksbigwagon]

here are my "first" photo's with the FZ8. Now I am not an expert, I had the camera in the smart ISO setting, I might have been shaking a little with the deer in the field pictures, but the ones in the shop came out much better.

I thought this was the best one I took, inside a shop building.

eh, not that bad,

oops..........

best of the ones in the field, taken at 4:30 Turkey day

wow I need some help

I am not a pro here, don't want to be but what can I do differently....yes tripod would help tons, I know that one

[Steve Foss]

picks, I don't think you need much help at all. These are nice.

The pics in the field are the ones I like best here. I like the first of those best because of the tighter crop. It would be better if it was cropped a bit tighter around the hunter and if the deer's legs weren't cut off, IMO, but the crop is easily fixed.

[finnbay]

I always like "in the field" shots best. Good exposure. I agree, a tighter crop will focus attention better. Well done!

[picksbigwagon]

Yeah, I haven't done any editing to these pics at all, this just how they were on the card.....I will try and monkey with them a little later and crop it down to go with the rack mount, but I might do the father son picture for the rack mount instead. The camera has what is Called a Histogram and I was trying to keep that in an apporpriate bell curve, I don't know the technical terms, but I did take a couple of nice apple tree pictures off my deck the other day too. Just another gadget to take out in the woods or on the water with me.

[finnbay]

As you get more into photography, you'll get more and more out of the histogram. Bell curve will give you good exposures under most situations. Steve can elaborate further, but if you push the right side over to the edge without going over, you have some advantages with what you can do in post processing.

[Steve Foss]

picks, as Ken said, the bell-curve histogram is good in some situations. But there are many, many excellent photographs that show wildly different patterns on the histogram, because the histogram is a representation of the combination of shadow, mid tones and highlights in the image. In other words, it simply reflects what's there in the image, and you don't need to worry whether it's bell-shaped or not, and don't need to try to construct an image with that curve.

There are a few key things your histogram can help you do, but they involve exposure compensation or manual settings, and it's probably best if you just get used to your camera for awhile before getting too far into that more advanced stuff.

[MN Shutterbug]

Your camera appears to be working well for you.You got some nice photos. Once learned, the histogram can become very helpful.

[umichjesse]

My best advice when taking harvest pictures is to hold the deer far out in front of you and have the camera sitting low to the ground when taking the picture. This accomplishes two things, it captures the animal from a better angle making it look bigger, and it shows a more attractive background, especially in fields.

I deerhunt alone so I use the self timer option on my Nikon Coolpix to take the pictures. Using my deer this year as an example, you can see how the angle makes a decent deer look pretty darn big. In the first picture the camera is sitting on a log at the site of the kill. In the second and third picture the camera is resting on a roll of paper towels in an alfafa field after I washed off the blood and moved him to a site with a beautiful background. The self timer mode takes away any shake because no one is touching the camera when the picture is taken. If these pictures were taken by someone standing up, the background would be plain green alfapha and the scenery would be lost.

[carlcmc]

umichjesse, great pics and nice deer.

[Steve Foss]

umichjesse: Very nice deer and images. Excellent poses.

Your pics emphasize the size of the deer's rack/head, and the intimate angle is inviting, while picks's pics, from a more elevated angle, show more of the deer's body.

Both are good approaches aimed at doing different things.

[umichjesse]

I agree, I usually like to show off the body in picks as well. However, I double lunged him at 15 yards with a 1 1/2 oz 12 gauge sabot so his flanks were literally covered in blood. I then dressed him before I drug him out of the woods so I didn't get any good body pictures after I hosed him off.

Picks' deer does have a beautiful coat and looks in great condition. Mine this year was a little ragged from the rut. Chasing does up and down those bluffs has to be a lot of work.