KyleE

It has been a long time since I submit a photo for critique here. The

Monarchs are out in force enjoying the flowers in the garden. I

welcome any and all constructive critique as it helps me improve

my photography.

Thank you.

Blind ta I am confused by your comment. Are you saying that you wanted to vote for my photo and was unable to? I would suggest taking this comment and sending it to one of the websites moderators or directly to Josh Root if you feel like the front page contests are not being held in a fair way.

I took this picture today of the eclipse. As the eclipse was nearing

its end the sun was just beginning to set behind the mountains. The

towers in front of the sun are from the local ski area at the top of

the mountain. Critiques and comments are welcome.

Thank you for viewing my photo.

This is a superb image and the story that goes along with it makes it even better! I love that you shared the story. The image is dynamic and exciting. It has great contrast between the tranquil flowers in the foreground and the turbulent storm and lightning in the background. The colors and tones are very nice as well.

The only constructive critique I could provide for this image is that I notice that it was taken at iso 800 and I am starting to see some noise in the clouds as a result. It would have been nice to see it shot at a lower iso.

Congratulations.

Kyle

Thank you for the comment Chris. These guys are extremely small indeed. I actually found him by accident, I was working out in the yard (I live in Nevada so dry desert climate) and I was moving a wood pile. When I flipped over a piece of plywood I saw this guy clinging to the underside. I only noticed him because his color was so vibrant compared to the wood. I hope you can find a red mite of your own to photograph.

Cheers

Critiques and constructive suggestions are very welcome and

appreciated. This red mite was so small that I almost missed it (if it

wasn't bright red I might have). I took this at 1:1 and still had to

crop pretty heavily. I would like to go back and try to get a photo of

these guys at larger than 1:1 sometime.

Thank you for taking the time to view my photo and comment.

This sunset was actually monochrome it was quite amazing. Comments and

critiques are welcomed and appreciated. Your suggestions have really

helped me develop as a photographer and learn.

Thank you.

Thank you Mike for the comment. I was amazed by the almost monochrome color of this sunset. This was also one instance of many where I wish that I had a lens that went wider than 18mm.

I am honored that everyone likes this photo. And I am really happy that it has sparked a discussion regarding aperture and point of focus. In this case I really felt like it was important and necessary for me to get the expanse of yellow flowers and green bushes in front of me which is why I tilted the camera down. If there had been more interesting colorful clouds in the sky perhaps I would have looked up further. In the future I will experiment both with stopping down further to make sure my foreground is in better focus as well as staying opened up and simply tilting the camera up further to make sure that the foreground is further away from the camera. 

Thank you for the suggestions. 

Thank you everyone sincerely for taking the time to write a comment about my photo. 

Alf I very much agree with your assessment that a smaller aperture would have been nice to use in order to get a greater depth of field as well as put the lens I was using into its sweet spot to get a touch more sharpness from it. Unfortunately a combination of my inexperience and camping meant I did not have the time nor forethought to grab my tripod before the light was gone. Nor did I think to up my iso above 100 in order to facilitate hand holding the camera stopped down more.

Hopefully as I learn more I will begin to be able to act faster during these fleeting moments to make adjustments to how I take the picture. 

Cheers.

I went camping at Pyramid lake. The sun was setting and I decided to turn

away from the sun and shoot the light playing off the mountains on the

other side of the lake.

Comments and constructive critique are very welcome.

Thank you.

Stephen that is a very good point. I do agree with you there is a lot of room for debate on the image vs. no image area and I have done the same thing as you sitting back and enjoying the moment many times before.

I find this whole subject fascinating.

Thank you both for leaving comments on my photo. I think if I had my regular camera with me (my wife and I were on our way to a Christmas party) that I would have benefit from the better low light performance, I notice a decent amount of grain in this photo when viewed at a size larger than for web. 

I also think that it would have allowed me to adjust exposure better such that I could have captured some of the beautiful lights from the city below to get a nice balance between the sunset and the city. 

As Mike pointed out there I would much rather be able to capture this photo even with a smaller camera than not capture it at all. It was a beautiful moment and I am happy that I am able to share it with friends here and elsewhere. 

Happy Holidays. 

Sunset the other day over Carson city. Didn't have time to grab my

regular camera because the light was fading fast so I had to snap this

with my iphone 4s. What do you think?

Mike,

I was going to experiment with a couple of different views and angles on this guy as well as moving back and opening up further however as you guessed I was really lucky to get this one shot and with decent focus on the eyes too! He flew away after only 2 photos. I was disappointment for sure that I was not at a better angle with respect to his abdomen to get more of him in focus. Next time I will be better prepared when I do see one of these flies still for long enough for me to take a photo of it.

Regards.

Kyle

Went down to the lake to capture a blue damselfly and ended up with a

picture of this guy instead. Taken at 1:1 F11 shutter speed 1/250th

with SB-900 flash.

Thanks for the explanation Mike. I really like to know the math behind the lenses (I am currently working on my 2nd bachelors in Math). That definitely makes sense to me now.

So if I set my D7000 at the max allowable aperture while focused at 1:1 even though the display shows something other than f2.8 the actual aperture is f2.8?

I agree with your comment on the other photo that larger formats are the option, D700 etc. though with a baby on the way I am limited in my camera gear purchasing power so I will try various techniques including the ones you have mentioned here until I get good enough to know which ones work for which photo. Hopefully down the line as you have expressed I can get to a point where my work can propel me into a position where the work supports the means for the work and I can invest in larger formats to get past some of the limitations I am facing right now.

In the mean time I will continue to work on mastering my control over depth of field, exposure, composition, and lighting.

Cheers.

Thank you again for an extremely detailed and thorough critique. I keep your comments in mind when I go out with my camera.

One thing I have to say for this particular photo is that similar to the squash vine this dragonfly is deceptive. You can't see it here because I have already cropped it down so far but it was particularly small. I had to crop it quite a bit already just to get it this large. Keep in mind that I process and take my photos with the intent of making large prints of them which limits my ability to move back and rely on cropping. There is a balance there and I definitely try to take advantage of the larger sensor in the D7000 and cropping but I don't want to go too far because crop it too much and I won't be able to make the large prints that I want to.

Also for the aperture this photo is at 1:1 and I may be wrong but focusing that close or even at a medium distance the maximum aperture that the lens can open up to goes down. I had a flash and plenty of light the only reason this ended up at iso400 was a mistake on my part as I forgot to take it out of auto iso and fix it at iso100 before taking the photo and after I figured it out the dragonfly had flown away.

That small mistake cost me reduced noise and faster shutter speed. I wish it hadn't happened and I will be more aware from now on. I agree with you that iso100 and 1/500th shutter speed both would have benefit the picture.

Thank you again for the detailed assessment. Hopefully I learn from your post and it helps improve my next set of photos.

Cheers. :)

Thank you Bob for taking the time to view my photo and leave your kind comment.

Thank you Pierre and Mike for the very detailed and helpful critiques. I think sometimes my macro photos are deceiving in just how small the objects are. Also keep in mind that I intend to print these out at quite large sizes like 24x36 and have made prints of some of my photos at that size. So that has some bearing on how much I can crop down before I lose too much resolution to make large prints. If I was just making photos to share on the internet then I would definitely rely on cropping down further more often. There is a fine balance in play when you plan on printing out a photo.This photo is at 1:1 so I didn't have a lot of room to play with as the vine tip was so small.

I do have another version where I cropped it down to just the curly at the top excluding the "arms" at the bottom. I will upload that when I get a chance. It seems that people like that version better perhaps because the arm closer to the camera is out of focus.

Also Mike correct me if I am wrong but the 105mm only goes to f2.8 when you are focused at or close to infinity. As you focus closer in the max aperture goes down right? In order to take a photo of this at f2.8 I would have been too far away and it would have been tiny in the photo again requiring too much cropping down. Maybe I am being too ambitious with the 105mm and I need to stick to larger objects with it for a while and use a reversed lens or something like that to go to 1:1 or larger.

I would like to again express my gratitude for all your helpful comments and critiques they really do help me when I go out to take photos, I try different techniques all the time based on your comments. Thank you Pierre and Mike.

Cheers.

This is the very tip of a tiny squash vine as it curls around. Comments and

critiques are very welcome and constructive criticism is preferred. Thank

you.

Thank you very much for your very encouraging comment. I do have other angles on this guy and will upload them eventually. Though I wish I had more time to take photos of it before it flew off. 

Cheers.

This red dragonfly was sitting on a tomato plant in my garden. Please help

me out with constructive commends on how you think I could improve this

photo. Hope you enjoy.

Thank you.

Douglas,

I really like this photo. I have spent quite some time trying to capture these butterflies in my yard and they are always seeming to fly away just as I grab focus. I am impressed that you captured two of them with such good focus. 

I like the composition and I like the detail in the thistle flower. I feel like the color saturation could be turned up a little bit, it might be my monitor but the photo feels a little bit muted. The swallowtails in my area at least are usually such a vibrant yellow with bright little orange and blue spots on the sides. 

I really like how nicely rendered the background is the solid dark green really helps make the subjects pop.

Cheers,

Kyle

Douglas,

I really appreciate all the comments you have left me on my photos. It is very helpful to me to hear from people what is working in the photos and what isn't. Every comment helps me grow and learn to be a better photographer. I appreciate the fact that you enjoy my compositions it is definitely a very important element of a photograph to pay attention to. 

Cheers,

Kyle

Douglas,

Thank you for critiquing my image. I really appreciate your comment. I can see what you mean about the catch light, I agree with you that it would have been nice to have it lower on the eye. I really struggled when adjusting the exposure for this photo as I found either I got really good eye detail lower on the eye and the rest of the frog was over exposed or I had good exposure on the body of the frog but his eye was a little bit darker than I wanted. 

I was not holding this guy in my hand, that is actually my wife's hand. She is very patient with me when I see something amazing to photograph and will help me out. 

Cheers,

Kyle