Here's one I took earlier - one of the very first with the D90 and I upload it for that reason. Don't like the sky in this, but like the orange leaves and the scale between the tree and Imogen.
D90, 18-105@28mm, f10, 1/60s, ISO200. Worcester Pitchcroft.
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5 comments:
As you said, think you uploaded this because it was with the new toy - and you know it's not one of your best! ;)
Blown sky doesn't help. I think if you want to do a small v large scale shot, you need to include the full tree and a portrait orientation may have helped this.
If you'd had the time, I think getting Imogen much closer to the trunk, perhaps looking up into the tree would have made for a fantastic shot - and got that sense of scale you were after.
But more important than talking about these photo things...how's the camera (I see you've treated yourself to a new lens as well, how's the 18-105?)
I'd rather have either more or less of the tree. Off to one side composition is fine. Not sure how much smidge is adding (as Tom says, nearer the tree with a close crop might be better given the sky conditions)
Might try this photo again today as the sky actually has some blue in it. Then, again, Imogen probably won't cooperate and her being in it was what I liked.
The lens was the kit lens with the D90. It seems pretty good to me fast-focus and I now have a an overlap with the Sigma 70-300. No idea about this new fangled VR stuff.
18-105 looks pretty good, although as with zooms, the bigger the focal multiplier thingy, the more compromises they've had to make with optical quality. I suspect this gets away with it more than the 18-200, which appears to have some issues.
To be honest I don't notice the VR until I get home and start processing and realise how many handheld 1/10s shots are suddenly usable - as opposed to all the ones I used to take thinking "hope this works" and getting home to find blurred messes.
Important things to remember on VR lenses are not to switch it on when you're using a tripod. Creates some weird vibration feedback loop (shutter causes tripod to vibrate, camera compensates for shake, VR mechanism causes tripod to vibrate etc etc)
Also worth reading up on the difference between the two VR modes - one is for everyday use and will take things like panning into account; the other is for more extreme conditions, such as taking shots from a moving car/boat etc.
Couple more things to look out for on new camera:
Battery life - massively down on what you'll be used to, mainly due to that lovely big screen which you'll be chimping with much too much, just because it looks so good. I could go months without recharging the D70...now it's only a few days.
New focus bits and bobs - with so many options it's very easy to get it horribly wrong! I'm still sticking to the basics and slowly adding new modes and options one at a time.
And don't panic if you find in some modes you don't get any indication of active focus points (for example when you select to use all focus points dynamically with 3D tracking)
Image quality I mentioned noise in another post, but it took me a while to realise the huge difference the MP count can make...it's much more unforgiving on technique and will show up things like camera shake, missed focus and inferior glass . However, when you get it right, it's great! (and don't get obsessed with pixel peeping, there are a lot more pixels to worry about now!)
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