I've seen some of the most fantastic photos taken by the most rudimentary of cameras. IMO, a dSlr should be fine, even in automatic mode. You can learn about how to start tinkering with aperture and shutter speed. Essentially facets of the same thing - the wider the lens opening/the longer it's open, the more light gets in.

But in addition to understanding how these things work together to let in light and create sharp images, I'd suggest starting with the basic stuff that would be important for ANY camera, even a pinhole camera.

Yes, it is all about light, one way or the other. That's what a camera captures. If you're snapping shots of candid moments, you're going to have to get better with the controls for better shots. But if you're doing landscapes, architecture, still life, you have the chance to practice with the basics.

- Learn when the light is right. Shadows create depth (usually good). Backlighting almost always creates grain on your underexposed foreground subject (normally not good). The more you try to "fix" it in post-processing, the worse it usually gets.
- Figure out where to rest the camera. Maybe just how to brace yourself on something, but a makeshift support, such as little bean bag on a wall or chair is great in lieu of a tripod. You yourself are the most likely source of camera shake. The lower the light, the worse it is too, as the shutter has to remain open longer, capturing every little movement.
- Get closer. Robert Capa, the war photographer, is reported to have said "If your photos aren't good enough, you're not close enough". I think there's a lot of truth in that. And I don't mean longer lens. I mean walking right up until your subject fills the frame, if you can. Maybe even overfills it. It's an interesting experiment to try.

pavot,

I really don't think you need to worry about being embarassed or judged for linking to some disappointing snaps, since everyone takes photos that didn't come out as they hpped and wished they knew how to fix.

But can I make an additional suggestion?

Take a couple of new pictures of someplace near your home that you find picturesque & attractive. If one of those is an exampl of a photo you wish was better, share it here. Then, if people give you specific suggestions to improve it -- like, turn of your autofocus or change the focus -- you can go back to the same spot and try out the advice, taking a new photo. If you are happy with the results, voila! Problem solved. But maybe a different suggestion will work better. By a process of elimnation you can see how to fix a photo and get one you like better

A very simple way to see if your settings need adjustment to get the picture qualities you want. It's what I did with my new camera back when it was new.

Take it out to your front or back yard. Take a picture of your house or a garden bed or a tree. Change a setting and take the same picture. keep changing settings until you like the picture. Note in your head or on paper something like "House, sunlight, aperture priority at F8" or "Tree, landscape mode, shutter priority at 100, 50mm on the zoom, etc." Then find a similar scene to one of these, set the camera as you have noted, and see if you like the shot.

I have a non-dslr Canon that I can set for my preferred snapshot settings as I am traveling in a city, and it is ready for many shots. I switch to my favored landscape settings when I am not in the city, and so on. I only need to remember 3 or four settings for everything I usually take, and at least 5% of my pix are worth showing to other people. At home I delete the rest and presto! I'm a great photographer.

I could only read a few of the posts but I'll chip in my two cents worth. I'm not a Nikon person (I use Canon) so I don't know one model from the next.

Unless you have the absolute most expensive of lenses no lens is really, really sharp throughout its range. This is what range means. Your lens is probably somewhat of a zoom lens. Probably in the range of 18mm - 55mm or something relatively close to that. Then you have the lens aperture or lens opening. Most consumer lenses are sharpest around f8 which is more or less midway between fully open and fully closed down.

So what can you do? Most pros, semi-pros or advanced amateurs change their camera body every few years. However, there lenses are expensive and those are seldom replaced.

Now lets take a look at what happens. If you are shooting in a fully automatic mode then the camera is deciding on two or three settings. The setting are ISO, shutter speed and aperture.

ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor. The higher the number the better you exposure results are in dimmer light. However, the higher the ISO the more noise you will have.

Shutter speed is self explanatory. It's the amount of time the shutter is open. The slower the shutter speed the better your exposure will be in dimmer light. Unfortunately, the slower your shutter speed the greater the chances of getting a blurred photo.

Aperture. The smaller the number the more wide open the lens will be. So the more wide open the lens the better your exposure will be in dim light. However, especially with a consumer lens, the more wide open the lens the softer the photo will be.

So as you can see there are 3 main settings and the combination of all three is always a compromise unless you have absolutely perfect conditions.

If you are shooting in fully automatic more the camera is deciding what type of photo you are taking. For instance, if you are shooting a sporting event you probably don't want a slow shutter speed as all of you photos will be blurred even if they are in focus.

GET OFF AUTOMATIC.

I've got to go but I check in and continue tonight of tomorrow morning.

You can see my travel photos at:

www.travelwalks.com

AJPeabody shared my favorite tip: take thousands of shots, be brutal about deleting the ones that aren't great, show the remaining few, and people will think you're a genius.

If you are using fully automatic then you have to have a way of telling the camera what type of pictures you're taking.

For instance, if you're shooting a sporting event you want a fast shutter speed otherwise your photos will be blurred because of the motion of the people or the ball, etc.

To make up for the fast shutter speed you'll need some combination of a wider open aperture or and increased ISO.

So you had to select "Sporting Event" or some like that.

You do have a better option. Most DSLR cameras allow you to select a semi-automatic mode. The choices usually are Shutter Priority (where you select the shutter speed and the camera select the aperture) or Aperture Priority (where you select the aperture and the camera selects the shutter speed).

For some reason most people use aperture priority. Not me. I use shutter priority (or fully manual depending upon whet I'm doing).

My reasoning is that if the conditions are excellent it doesn't matter which you use. Everything will be fine. However, that's not usually the case. So my thinking is that I'd rather have a sharp under-exposed photo than a blurred properly exposed picture. If it's sharp and under-exposed I can fix it in Photoshop. If it's blurred then it's blurred.

I don't know how many people read my two posts or understand what I wrote. So I'll stop and see if anybody has any questions.

<i>AJPeabody shared my favorite tip: take thousands of shots, be brutal about deleting the ones that aren't great, show the remaining few, and people will think you're a genius.</i>

So true!


Although, some of my favs have been ones I sat there and waited for as the sun moved to the right spot or just the right group of people passed by. Granted though, not all my favs are super sharp and technically perfect.

This was a shot I sat leaning on a stack of rocks and waited for. I took two snaps and picked the best (though I guess that's still only 50%). Still not perfect though.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

Myer: <i>For some reason most people use aperture priority. Not me. I use shutter priority (or fully manual depending upon whet I'm doing).</i>

I prefer aperture priority to shutter priority because I usually want a faster shutter speed if I can get it. I may know that I am pretty safe with say 1/100 second handheld in a certain situation, at a certain focal length, to avoid camera shake, but if that means the camera picks f/11, I'd rather be at f/8 and get the faster shutter speed, because I know f/8 is the sweet spot on my lens. 1/250 and f/8 (if that's what the equivalent of 1/100 f/11 would be, just guessing) gives me a better chance to get a sharp exposure, even if 1/100 is PROBABLY OK. Sometimes your hand isn't as steady as at other times.

What would be nice is to have a mode where I set the MAXIMUM (slowest) shutter speed, but have the camera prefer faster, and at the slowest/max speed, sacrifice aperture. I guess the program mode may do this on some cameras, though as I said above, my Lumix's program mode is stupid and seems unable to work this way.

I often underexpose things too when I want to make sure I will get a sharp exposure in a borderline situation. This works even better if you shoot raw. But there's a point of diminishing returns with underexposure; the ability to lighten it later is traded for more noise, the more you have to lighten it - probably acceptable if you aren't lightening it much.

But it is nice to have the ability to bracket in different ways with a digital camera at almost no cost, especially in cases where you are shooting a landscape or something static at your leisure and you can expose the same shot in different ways and pick the best settings later when sorting your pictures.

Andrew,

I use my camera a lot. In most cases I don't have to look at the back or top to see the settings. I can see them in the viewfinder and can adjust (especially the shutter speed) without looking. Just the feel.

Also, I shoot RAW + .jpg so I have the best of both worlds.

Since I shoot in shutter priority mode I'm always looking to see if where the aperture is.

I shoot a fair amount of birds-in-flight with a 100-400 lens (Canon pro level lens). I do that in manual mode since I track the birds from above and then below the tree line (and visa versa). I practice a fair amount so I've gotten reasonable at it.

I shoot birds flying at 1/2000 or 1/2500 sec and f7 or f8. ISO is 400.

What happens if you're shooting action? You want to make sure your shutter speed is fast enough to freeze the action. You have to decide what's most important. To me it's freezing the action. If I'm a stop or so under-exposed I'll fix that. But if my shutter speed is slow and the photo is blurred it's garbage.

So, I use shutter priority.

Back to pavot's question.

Your photos may be in focus. Photos that are not sharp enough could be cause by several things.

1. Consumer quality lens being used out of the sweet spot.
2. The camera body and lens not aligned. This can only be adjusted in higher level camera.
3. Shutter speed too slow for the scene or your ability to hold the camera steady. Learn to hold the camera with you left hand under the lens. Take a breath and hold. Then press the shutter. Takes practice.
4. Glare in the photo can give the illusion of not being sharp. Try reducing the "highs" a little in Photoshop or some similar editing program.

There are probably a few other things but these the the things that come to mind.

Myer, I wasn't trying to convince you to switch to aperture priority; you seemed to wonder why others use it, so I explained why I do. But, I don't shoot much action.

I'm waiting to see pavot's sample photos. It's pointless to keep speculating what he/she means until then.

Is the sharpness loss due to narrow depth of field from too wide an aperture? One could retry using aperture priority at f8 or f11 or even f16 and see. (Let's not get into hyperfocal settings.)

AJPeabody,

That's another reason for lack of sharpness. Insufficient depth-of-field.

In aperture priority you would make sure the aperture is between f8 and f11 or a bit more closed.

In my case since I use manual or shutter priority I would either slow the shutter (depending upon my scene) or increase the ISO a bit.

Like I wrote above, unless the conditions are excellent the combination of the various settings are a compromise. You have to do what's best for your style and the scene type.

chatter about camera settings: love it!

Let me summarize.

We have 3 basic mode of photography; Fully Automatic, Semi-Automatic and Manual.

Many people new to a camera take the position that since they're new they'll start with Fully-Automatic and progress from there.

Well, you can't progress from Fully Automatic.

The best way to approach this is to read about the two Semi Automatic choice (Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority), select the one that seems to make the most sense to you and then spend an hour a day for four or five days practicing it.

Regardless of which one you select, conditions that are not ideal will cause you to have to make a few adjustments on the fly. You will learn this and understand it through practice.

It won't take you more than a few days to see much improves results.

Don't go out and buy a camera and wait until you're on the plane to read the manual and play with the camera settings. Then you'll be back in Fully Automatic.

Another amen to what AJPeabody said about deleting most of your images. I think I once read that National Geo photographers took 3,000 photos for every one published. And that was in film days.

Which made NG's Jim Brandenberg's "Chased by the Light" project quite interesting. He allowed himself one picture per day for 90 days.

On my most recent 2-week trip I took about 1,200 shots and deleted 700. Of the remaining 500 I put 70 into an online gallery and 50 will go into a real book that I'll show to friends.

Nelson,

It depends what you are shooting and what your goal is.

I was recently on a trip. I went to one specific spot three times; twice early in the morning and once late in the afternoon which was by far the better time.

Each time I was there I shot from three difference distances. To make sure of the exposure I took three shots from each location.

That means I shot about 30 photos.

Since the late afternoon time was by far the best all the photos taken early in the morning were scrapped. Then I kept 3 from the late afternoon shoots. So I kept about 3 out of 30.

When I go to shoot birds-in-flight I often end up keeping between 40% and 70%. It depends on what I happened to see on that specific day.

A lot of good poop here. I can only add that with the advent of digital media, any perfectionist should just take a number of shots at different apertures, shutter speeds , focal lengths/zoom settings. Back in the dark ages when film actually cost money, it was a lot harder to do. I can remember weighing how many sheets of expensive 4x5 color sheet film I wanted to waste bracketing exposure back when each sheet cost the equivalent of a student's lunch. I used to have to drag my view camera around on the seat of my MGB as it wouldn't fit in the trunk.

I am very happy to just use a good cellphone camera.

What's a good cellphone camera?

I'd like to see what happens when you get a great shot and decide you'd like to hang an 11x14 of it on the wall.

They look great on that little, sharp screen but far from great blown up and printed.

In most cases the shutter speed is about 1/30 sec and it's hand held.

Good luck.

Get one with the most pixels you can find.
Then read the manual that came with it.

@Myer, I'm in the photo business. For a while what I sold most were prints from photographs I took using my iPhone. Already a clip on lens helps. Almost no one prints anymore. Pixel size is overrated. More pixels often means more noise.

OK, kids. A link to the kind of photo everyone who goes to Edinburgh takes:

https://thepavot.smugmug.com/Travel-Snap-Woe/


Have at it.

<i>OK, kids. A link to the kind of photo everyone who goes to Edinburgh takes...</i>

Y'know, it looks fine to me. If you had set the camera to save the image both in raw (NEF) and jpeg formats, you could have used the "native" resolution (4572 x 3018) as well as the compressed jpeg resolution. (On my monitor, and I'm assuming this is either you or Smugmug having reduced the image size) it maxes out at 1600 x 1056, so obviously a lot fewer number of pixels.

But what's the point? I have a 22" monitor and the image at maximum resolution on my screen is "tack sharp" as we say in my photo club. If you were to print it on a 16" x 20" sheet of photo paper (the biggest commonly available) and hung it on a wall, nobody would complain that it's not sharp enough, unless they were Mr. Peepers and had their nose resting against the picture frame.

It's like buying a 60" TV. If you're sitting ten feet from it, it's a terrific, sharp image. If you're sitting ten inches from it, there's no image at all, just a bunch of tiny dots changing color.

If you find this image not sharp enough, then we're on different pages.

Yes, I agree with Gardyloo, sharpness is fine.

I think what you are dealing with here is diffused light and a lack of contrast. That kind of light can be great for portraits or flowers, say, but generally not so good for landscapes or cityscapes.

Also the sky above the Dugald Stewart Monument is completely clipped - blown out to white, there is no interest there.

I played with the photo in Lightroom for one minute and came up with this:
http://nelsonchenkin.zenfolio.com/p3...2675#h98612675

There's only so much you can do with a .jpg. You may like it better, or you may not.

But anyway I think sharpness in your original is fine.

I agree as well, perhaps it's the sky and the lack of detail there?

Can you post one that you like and what it is you like about it compared to this one?

The major problem is lighting and and lack of contrast. On my small tablet it looks to me like the background is sharper than the foreground... any idea what the aperture was (I suppose not)?

We had many a discussion back in the day (early 70s) about perceived sharpness of certain objects. It seemed nobody was ever able in photo school to produce sharp tree bark, no matter the lens or technique.

Pavot,

The problem isn't with the photo image it's with the post processing.

What post processing you ask.

These are digital photos. What you do should be determined by what you goals and expectations are.

If you would like better (many things here) results you have to come up with an approach to processing.

I spent about 30 seconds max on it.

I don't want to put it on my web site so if you give me an email address I'll send it to you and you can post it for people to compare with the original.

What I did was sharpen it a little, increase the lows (dark) and decrease the highs (very light).

The lines in the buildings immediately jumped out.

Here the EXIF info from pavot's file:

Camera Nikon NIKON D3100
Lens AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
ISO 100
Focal Length 22.0 mm (33.0 mm in 35mm)
Aperture f/5.6
Exposure Time 0.008s (1/125)
Name DSC_0650.JPG
Size 4572 x 3018
File Size 3.51 MB
Date Taken 2014-03-16 15:59:42
Date Modified 2014-04-01 22:20:25

Hopefully I used the correct images

Original
http://tinyurl.com/yb349578

Processed
http://tinyurl.com/y8ntxay8

I have now selected the dominant items and brought them out a bit from the shadows.

Those were the pillars on the left and the structure or castle in the back in the middle.

And just for good measure I very slightly increased the contrast.

Not enough to lighten anything too much but to just increase the difference between anything light and anything darker.

Well, it's just my opinion, but I prefer the original....

From the settings I see on your photos:
ISO 100
Shutter Speed 1/125 sec
Aperture f5.6


I don't don't how well your camera handles noise but I would guess it should be pretty good at ISO 200 or 400.

Let's go for ISO400.

That would allow you to use a shutter speed of 1/250 sec
and that would probably gicv you an aperture of f6.3

That alone would give you a sharper image.

thursdaysd,

Processing is a matter of personal preference.

Which part of the original do you prefer?

The soft image or dull colors?

<i>Well, it's just my opinion, but I prefer the original....</i>

It's the vérité style. In the B&W film days, photographers tended to manipulate their pictures in the darkroom. Now we can use Photoshop.

Pavot, it's not a bad photo, but I know what you mean that the photo just doesn't "pop." To me, the problem with this photo is the time you were there. You could tweak the settings a little and improve it marginally...but the lighting just isn't appealing, and the sky isn't interesting. It's not a bad picture; had I been there at that same moment, I don't think I could have done much better. (I might have shot it at ISO 200 or 400 just to make sure I had a faster shutter speed to reduce the chance of camera shake.)

In fact, as I go through pictures from my own trip back in May (Slovenia, Italy, France), I have to deal with a similar problem: some of my pictures would have been a lot better had I had better light, a better day. I visited a few cute towns in Slovenia when it was just about to rain. The light was kind of flat - but I didn't have the luxury to hang out for a day for it to improve. What could I do? I did the best I could; I had to move on to the next town.

In your picture, if I could choose the ideal time, maybe I'd want at least a semi-sunny day, with the sun in a different spot (though I can't quite tell where the sun is relative to where you were standing? I usually don't want to shoot into the sun at all). I'd want some light on the buildings, especially the one in the foreground. "Golden hour" might have been ideal. If the buildings were lit at night, I'd also be interested in trying it at dusk or daybreak, perhaps with an appealing sky, maybe just when the lights come on at night but not too late that they saturate. But you have to deal with the conditions as you find them, and sometimes the best you can do just isn't going to produce an amazing picture.

"Which part of the original do you prefer?

The soft image or dull colors?"

The colors are dull in both - it was obviously a dull day. The "sharper" versions look over-processed and unnatural to me.

I agree with Andrew that it was just not the best time for photography. And in Scotland that is hardly unusual...

I have no idea what any of you are talking about. I like the first picture. The second picture is even nicer IMO.

I’m happy when my finger isn’t in the way. Carry on.

Pavot,

What disappointed you about the picture? That the architectural details that captured your eye aren't captured in the photo, or that the panoramic view, sweeping all the way out to the sea, just has no drama in the photo?

Looking at the original photo, I missed many of the architectural details that other people's processing revealed. Nelson's version has the viture of making the detailing on the monument clear, and also makes the bridge clearer. But it almost made me wish the photo were more tightly focused on the monument rather than trying to include the whole scene.

Myer's version creates more of a feeling of the panorama, and brings out many details, but I found my eye jumping around what was now a more cluttered shot, rather than feeling a sweep.

I agree with Andrew that the overall problem is difficult lighting, time of day, weather conditions. Were I post-processing, I might have tried to create much more drama in the sky (sacrificing a whole lot of detail in the process).

But again: What was it about the scene on Carlton Hill that made you want to take a picture?

Thanks so, so much, everyone -- for opinions, for advice, and for actually working on my photo! I really appreciate the time you've poured into answering my question.

I'm beginning to understand that on dull days -- and others, too -- I'll need to go beyond the auto settings on my camera. I'm going to try to learn a lot about lighting in the coming months.

---

Here's the same view three months later (I just added another pic). It's still a travel snap, nothing more:

https://thepavot.smugmug.com/Travel-Snap-Woe/

---

Really, words fail me. You have been so helpful!