The Senior Years

Trying my hand once again with the 50mm 1.4.

As always, any constructive feedback for how this photo could be

improved is greatly appreciated.

Again, very rich colour work, and for me, the inclusion of flowers in the shot adds a bit of nature's spirituality and sense of renewal to the photograph.  They are a counterpoint to Brodie's age.  The depth of field is perfect to me...nice separation of the subject from the background, and the light is lovely.

There are two minor changes I'd like to see here, though.

I'd like to see more light in Brodie's eye.  The lack of light in the eye seems to suggest to me that Brodie's life is nearing its end, and that isn't the direction I like to go when photographing older dogs.   It's been my experience that even though a dog may be old, most of them still have that sparkle of life and fun in their eyes.

The other thing is the red flower right next to Brodie's left eye.  It doesn't really bother me all that much, but some people would nitpick you about it...and it does sort of break the line of the head.

In spite of what I'd like to see different, I still like the photograph very much.

Hi Nicole,

I like the image as is, but after reading Jim's comment, I felt that I would give it a go .

You certainly can do much better having the RAW image to work with.

Nice work.

Best Regards, Mike

Hi Nicole:

I agree with Jim's comments and  what Mike expressed visually.

I'd like to add that it's a great shot of Brodie and one that I'm sure you'll cherish for a long time. The setting, composition and DOF are great.

Our companion's lives move so quickly that we need to be out there with our cameras as often as possible.

Regards, John

Jim, Mike, and John, thanks so much for all your valuable critiques. I agree with all the comments completely now that they have been pointed out - love getting this feedback!

I've taken the suggestions and made a few changes. Not sure if I can attach the revised photo with this post but I will give it a try as I would like to see if I'm heading in the right direction.

And Mike, so very true about RAW. I will admit I have not felt quite "brave enough" to start working in RAW as my knowledge of it is limited although I most certainly will...soon!

Thanks again everyone for your taking the time to post your insights :)

Over saturated colors though!

Best regards Nicole!

PDE

Hi Nicole,

I am pleased that you ventured out to work with your RAW data.

Nice job.

Best Regards,  Mike

Nice shot, Nicole.  I do like your revised shot a lot better.  I think Mike probably assumed you shot in raw and meant the original full size image is easier to work on than the small uploaded web sample.  Personally, I think raw is way overrated.  I don't have a single image in my portfolio that was shot in raw.  I have tried post-processing raw and I can't tell a difference between that and jpg no matter how hard I try.  I like to shoot a lot and I know I would have run out of space or buffer many times and missed many shots if I was shooting raw.  So for me, I think the benefits of shooting jpg outweigh shooting raw.  I guess I could shoot raw for studio shots or whatever, but I just don't bother.  I do always save in tiff after post-processing though, so if I ever feel the need to come back and work on an image again it won't be degraded by multiple jpg saves.

Pierre, I too had wondered if the colors were too much. I had my WB set on shade and I do find the "warming" effect comes on a bit too strong with this setting. It is certainly something to keep working at, both while shooting and in post-processing.

Scott, thanks so much. I admire your dog photos very much (still recall viewing and absolutely love the chess one), so your feedback is greatly appreciated. Also good to know your thoughts on RAW - over the last year I keep wondering if I have missed the boat with many of the shots I've taken once working on them after the fact. With the D300S I suppose I should throw my CF card in there and give RAW a try but I just haven't done it yet ;). Also very good to know about saving in TIFF after! Had not thought about that - will certainly add that to my "things to do" list. Thanks :)

Hi Nicole:

You can set your D300 to shoot both camera raw and jpeg. Of course, it will take more space;but, it's worth a try until you decide which way to go.

I think of it this way. Shooting jpeg is like  shooting film, taking it to the store to be developed and then getting back prints. It's easy. There is someone at the store making adjustments on your behalf, but the process is mostly automated. In the case of shooting jpeg, your camera is that store.

Shooting RAW requires that you get involved in the developing of the image using camera raw (included with PS and PSE), Lightroom, Capture NX, Aperture or the like. It is normally not the case that you would not make some adjustments to the 'processing' of your image (sorry 'bout the double negatives there). It's like you developing your own film and making your own prints. If you are going to implement the process yourself, you'll tweak it.

Some are happy with the camera's processing to jpeg, just like they are happy taking their film to the store and getting prints back. Then there's others, myself included, that see the potential to tinker with and perhaps improve images. The downside is that it takes time. Lots of time. And RAW files take more space. The upside is that you can tweak the image multiple times in a non-destructive way. Once your camera has processed your image and saved it as a jpeg, you can't undo that processing to try your own tweaks at the 'developing' stage.

Just like Canon vs Nikon, there is no right or wrong to RAW vs jpeg.

My $0.02 worth. Hope it helps.

Regards, John

Thanks John. I currrently only have it set for JPEG but may set for both relatively soon and play with some of the RAW images. Thanks so much for your input :)