First D50 shots..please give feedback

[einsteins]

Hello all
Just joined this forum and I must say I love all the info and interesting reading....a great find!

I just bought a Nikon D50 and have posted a couple of tank pics and (one flower) that I took in RAW format and adjusted in Adobe Raw plugin. I would love some feedback as this is my first DSLR. I used a Nikon 28-80mm lens. DOF is not what I would like but I'll wait for your opinions and advice if your willing...

Heres a link to the photos... http://www.einsweb.com/4_21_tank/

I hope you enjoy them...lol
Thanks inadvance for your feedback!

einsteins

[Obliviou$]

Very nice Einsteins. Actually very impressive considering you just got your new camera.
The coral shots are great. Next time I would suggest you post the pictures on the forum.

link to photo. You will often get much more critique ;)

Looking forward to seeing your next post!

And of course many welcomes from APF !
You have to look hard for a friendlier bunch of photographers.

[einsteins]

Thanks for the advice on posting the pic....I was just trying to keep the posts small for the site.
Here they are for the peeps that dont like or trust following the links.

http://www.einsweb.com/4_21_tank/branch_acro1.jpg

http://www.einsweb.com/4_21_tank/blue_crocea1.jpg
http://www.einsweb.com/4_21_tank/yellow_porites1.jpg
http://www.einsweb.com/4_21_tank/tulip1.jpg

So how can I make these better?

Thanks again

Einsteins

[alanhill]

I hope you are pleased with these - they look very good to me. Well done!
Technically they are in foucs, well exposed (although perhaps the tulip is rather dark) and the colours appear to be accurate. There isn't really much to criticise except the composition of the shots, and without seeing the tank it's hard to know how difficult the subjects were. I think I might have tried to get nicer angles of the corals - if you could have shot the branches from a more side-on view you might get more pleasing photos than these slightly end-on shots. You might also have got more of the branch in focus as you would not need so much depth of field (the zone between the thing nearest to the camera that is in focus and the thing furthest from it which is also in focus - it is controlled by the aperture or f-number of the lens). Likewise the clam is a very nice photo, the only way it could be improved would be to use a smaller aperture (larger f-number) to get more depth of field, so that the back half of the animal would also be in focus - of course that would need a slower shutter speed or a higher ISO setting and so it might be more difficult (or even impossible) to do this.
I'm sure you'll enjoy using your new camera - please show us some more shots if you can.

Alan

[einsteins]

Thank you Alan

I did shoot the tulip hand held with a flash but in processing when I lightened the pic the tulip itself started losing the rich color...I guess I need to isolate the background and lighten it that way.
As for the corals...I shot those in RAW mode, I wanted to do RAW with Apature priority but the cam wouldnt go to RAW in that mode. Is there a way on the D50 to increase the F\# DOF in RAW mode?

Like I said this is my first DSLR (or any SLR) so this is a new world to me. My previous cam was a NIKON coolpix 5000

Thanks again for your input
einsteins

[GunmetalBlue]

Hi Einsteins and welcome to the forum. Straight out of the box, you are doing quite well - the rest will be fine-tuning with advice from the helpful folks here. :-)

Looking forward to seeing more of your work and interesting looking tank inhabitants, such as that beautiful clam.

-Miko

[alanhill]

I wanted to do RAW with Apature priority but the cam wouldnt go to RAW in that mode. Is there a way on the D50 to increase the F\# DOF in RAW mode?

I'm very surprised if there isn't some way of doing this. I know Nikon manuals are not awfully user friendly, but have a look. You might also check out Nikon's website advice section (you can ask 'How to' questions in the Nikon Europe site at least).

Alan

[GoonShoes]

Ive recently got a D50 and you can use RAW files in any setting. Have a read of the manual.

[glaive]

All excelent photos, I can only think to ask for a another shot. I was thinking of the coral? with the blue and black, maybe try a shot that focuses on the middle of the blue portion to highlight that. Just a though on an interesting shot, no real critique as I am far from qualified. lol