Training Day Pics

[311Hemi]

I finally got to take the 70-200 f2.8L IS out for a run at a training day last weekend. I am still a rookie in all of this and gave my first attempt at editing pics tonight in PSE 5. I don't feel that I am getting the images that this lens is capable of....but as I said I have only used it a few times and I am working on learning the proper settings to use. I know I keep reading that it is usual to only get a small amount of keepers out of a day of shooting and I think that is part of why I feel that way. I didn't shoot a ton of pics that day. Non the less.....here are a few images I captures.

I'm not sure if I am burning these pics out in the couple hours I took using PSE tonight....but I am quickly learning how much that can be used to edit pics (in a good way!!). One thing I noticed is the problems I am having focusing on the subject with all the foliage in the way. I believe I need to set up the focus options better to maybe spot focus......if that makes sense. I know I have a lot to learn about ISO, exposure, and aperture settings.

I was having a tough time editing the image of the black dog in the white background.

CC is definitely welcome!!!!

[machohorn]

You cant go wrong with a dog chashing a bird pic, I am also new but I think you have some very nice shots there

[MN Shutterbug]

Where the heck are you pheasant hunting, this time of the year?

[Deitz Dittrich]

I'm guessing a game farm...

[bassNspear]

those are awesome shots!

[Dbl]

Wahoo! Nice to get out and use the new toy! I can help you a bit with your shots.

1. No doubt you have all your focus points selected. This is one of the limitations of auto focus. The camera will focus on the spot that provides the highest contrast over the range of the focus spots. This shot the focus grabbed the grass in the background. When you are shooting subjects that can cause the focus to shift around to something else you will get more keepers by selecting one focus point, usually the center one since that is where your subject will be. Do you have the software that came with the camera? There is a cool program called Zoombrowser EX that will allow you to open an UNEDITED photo and see where the focus points are in the photo. This is a very valuable tool to help you learn if it was your technique or the camera's that missed.

2. I see some global editing done to this shot, another words you applied some type of auto setting trying to lighten up the black lab? It caused the snow to blow completely out, (loss of detail in the snow). One of the limitations of a camera meter is that it trys to meter average things to a neutral gray. It takes a bright snowy scene and underexposes the shot, it takes a dark dog and tries to lighten it. Your camera is set to "Pattern" metering, you will likely have more accurate exposures if you change that to "Evaluative" metering. Take a few minutes to read a bit about that in your manual. If you have more questions we can help with that.

3. Focus grabbed those close weeds and the meter had a hard time with the dark dog against the white background.

4. Very nice shot, still some detail in the dog and in the snow, tough thing to do!

5. Good shot, metering struggles again and focus struggled to find something of contrast on the black dog!

6. You attempted an auto fix again, the colors shifted to a very green tint. There are many ways to color correct and I won't even start with many of them. That can be a whole another thread if you want.

7. Nice shot.

That is just a starting point. Change your focus point to center only for this type of shooting. Change your metering in camera to Evaluative, and remember when shooting in the snow you likely will have to use some Exposure Compensation because the camera is trying to average all that white out to a grey resulting in underexposure. Typically with snow +2/3 or even +1 EC (exposure compensation) will give you good results. It is a starting point.

If you post a completely unedited shot it would be easier to see what you have done and the camera has done.

Keep shooting, you will see your quality of shots rise dramatically! Good job!

[Kyle]

you should send those first two pics to a magazine. Gaurantee they would get put in!

[311Hemi]

Thanks for the CC DBL! I do have the CD that came with the camera so I am going to look at that. I was trying to determine focus points by looking at the pictures to try to figure out what was going on, but that tool is just what I need!

As far as these pics, I PP'd all of them. I had to correct the RGB levels on many of them and I started playing around with other tools as I got going. It was my first attempt at PP'ing and I was working on my laptop (not calibrated). I will try to post a few of the unedited pics tonight to see what you think.

Edit: Looking at this pics on my monitor at work I can tell these pics could be adjusted better. I really need to calibrate one of my screens to see whats what.

BTW...these pics were taken at a game farm near Princeton last weekend.

[Hwood]

I like #2.

[311Hemi]

If you post a completely unedited shot it would be easier to see what you have done and the camera has done.

Here are a couple of the unedited pics (with the edited following). I mainly found that adjusting the levels of the pics really brought them in to what I expected. I think they were a bit overexposed originally? Let me know what you think.