Trekking in the garden
topic relations: photography
Trekking in the garden
Went out to the Singapore Botanic Gardens today with some of my coworkers.
I don't know how good the above photo is in terms of composition. I just thought that the low angle was quite different from a lot of the other photos I took during the day. This photo was actually shot on a whim blindly.
Everyone wants to get into photography these days.
A fairly good set of manufacturers were represented today: Canon, Nikon, Sony and Panasonic. Funny how none of us sported the same brand. Still missing some representation from other manufacturers... we need people to pick up at least Pentax/Samsung and Olympus DSLRs to be more complete on the consumer range of cameras (joking).
It was a good opportunity for me to continue to practice shooting with a DSLR-type camera. One of the things about using a camera with a DSLR-sized sensor (e.g. Four-Thirds and up) is that at large apertures, focus mistakes are a lot less forgivable.
I sometimes find that a lot of my images appear softly focused, or out of focus, or focused on the wrong thing. A lot of this is out of habit of me always shooting with the aperture as large as possible, as I would typically do with my point and shoot.
The thing is that DSLR-sized sensors will result in a smaller depth of field than those found in your typical compact camera. And with that smaller depth of field, poor focus is a greater issue.
So now aperture-priority actually means more than just forcing the aperture wide-open. It also implies stopping down the aperture to ensure a larger depth of field when required.
Of course, my rather slow kit lens of f/3.5 is more forgiving than say a fast prime at f/1.8 or f/2.8. But the depth of field I get with f/3.5 on the Four-Thirds sensor is much smaller than the depth of field I get with f/2.8 on my point and shoot.
Initially, I'm wondering if I was actually taking better photos with my point and shoot than I am with the Lumix G1. Not sure why. Still not used to the form factor? Or maybe I just took more photos with my point and shoot.
A lot of my photos are a quite blur/soft. Some are quite clear though, which leaves me to assume that it's a problem with my technique rather than the equipment (plus a lot of the sample G1 images I see online are very crisp). It's probably a combination of the smaller depth of field and me not holding the camera as steadily as I was holding the point and shoot.
4 comments
I definitely think that the bigger sensor would exacerbate focus issues. And handholding is always a problem. Have you ever thought of investing in a good Tri- or Monopod? Haha, there's a whole lot of things you can do, but handholding your camera is generally going to get you un-tack sharp results!
Keep on shooting Ash :)
Haha, I hadn't really thought about getting a tripod or a monopod. I think perhaps because I wanted to keep my gear quite light. I still think that practice can help improve my hit percentage from what it is now though. Controlling breathing, relaxing, and squeezing the trigger rather than pulling (like if shooting a rifle) are supposed to help, but I don't think I've mastered these yet. I feel that I'm not holding the G1 as steadily as I used to hold my FX-520.
Professional landscape photographers never shoot anything without a tripod and always have a remote trigger just to avoid shaking the camera. This definitely isn't practical for photo walks, but again, a monopod is small and light and will help immensely!
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