Any professional photographers on here?

[spinner1]

I have a Sony W-7 and took this photo.


I was quite disappointed in the clarity of the trout. It appears to have focused on the
water instead of the fish.

Any pointers would be appreciated?

Len

[JohnScott]

Len -

I am certainly NOT a professional photographer - but what struck me looking at the photo is that the exposure set near the center of the photo, near the seam on the jacket sleeve. What is on the "dark" side of the photo seems underexposed and what is on the "light" side seems to be overexposed. I don't think it is the water that caused the problem, but the very sharp contrast between the two sides of the photo ( which may be related to water, but doesn't make the water the cause ). My guess is that if you had been holding the fish directly in front of you, the exposure would have been better balanced across the photo and you would be as happy with the photo as you were with the fish.

John

[spinner1]

about every 10th water shot turns out








I actually shy away from water shots because most times I am disappointed.

[joerogrz]

I'm not a professional by any means, but I have studied photography for a while now and have a decent grasp on the subject.
A little trick I learned with digital cameras is how to trick the camera by pointing it at bright or dark areas to make it under or over-expose. I took these two photos at the same time of the day, standing in the same location.

This one is slightly over-exposed.

I pointed the camera straight ahead and it focused on a dark area, which opened the eye (f-stop) to let more light in.


This one is under-exposed.

I pointed the camera first at the clouds above me then slightly depressed and held the button. I believe most models of digital cameras will do this with little or no problem. After I had the button slightly depressed, I pointed the camera back to roughly the same point as the other photo, and finished depressing the button. This closed the eye to let in less light, in addition to speeding up the shutter speed.
I use an old HP 3.3MP digital camera... That's partially why those pics look like that.


If you want to get past the glare on the water, you can use a polarizing filter. If you can't find one for your particular camera, you can point the lens through one side of polarizing sunglasses. That should take care of the glare on the water, but it will also slow down the shutter speed if the glasses or the filter is dark, which will make it blurry.

One book that I always referred to was the National Geographic Field Guide to Photography. It has a lot of useful information in it, but the one I use is older and mostly used for 35mm film cameras.

[OttoDita]

Hi Len,

It doesn't look like you have an exposure problem at all. It looks like you have a glare problem, kind of like when you need flash, but it's too much and you end up with a really bright area.

I'm not familiar with Sony at all, only Canon products. Is it a Point and shoot or a DSLR? Seems like a P&S. Most P&S's have some settings for exposure, and some have manual settings too, not many and you generally can't change it too much either, but might be enough.

Like Joerogrz mentioned, a polorized filter would help, and in this case, I think it would solve the problem you're seeing.

In any case, the water reflects sunlight, which brightens everything else up. So polorization could definitely be the issue.

Before I sold my DSLR I had the same problem, was changing the explosure settings etc. But then I'd have the area that was over-exposed turn out fine and the rest be under-exposed. So someone told me (When I showed the pics, didn't mention anything about the photo or issues) that a filter would be a good idea. So I picked one up, a good one, but cheap from ebay. And viola, problem was solved.

I find photos on sunny days to make some of the best photos, can't beat natural light. But I find it can also ruin a lot of photos. It's a love hate thing

But at any rate, I'm no professional unfortunately. If you have the manual for the camera, see about exposure settings, or, do as Joerogrz said, focus on the exposure you'd like. Sometimes doing so can put what you want in focus, out of focus too.

One other trick, to do with you water focus. If your autofocus won't focus on what you want, focus on something the same distance away, such as your hand or something, then move the camer (while still holding the shutter button half way compressed) focus area to what you want focused.

Focus doesn't focus on something specifically, it focuses by distance. So if you focused on your hand, chances are the fish would be in focus when moving the camera to the right a little. Some cameras you can also change the focus point. Some have the multiple focus points, but sometimes you can change it to center only. I found a lot of the times I'd run around with the center focus most the time, minus for landscapes or something.

Hope this helps, take care. Oh, and by the way, those are nice photos
Shane

[rtzden]

Hello Len,

Photography is my second, but I use a Fuji S207 with multy settings. However, all those choices and settings leave me room for poor adjustments. Hence, i make up the lazy thumb with software like Photosuite or HP photo editor. Needless to say, you could manipulte that picture with a good edit software and sometimes it works with CD pic's from outside sources. Either way, your digital camera should have come with some software.
Meanwhile, that is a great picture if you are not concerned with counting the spots on it...LOL
Richard

[shorthaul]

No professional here either but you might look into a polarizing filter for your camera---just like the polarized glasses you use for fishing. It will cut the glare off the water and allow you to see into the water, without the disturbing glare---but if you camera doesnt read its exposures through the lens you would have to compensate your exposure for the filter by manually adjusting it or bracketing your exposures.

As mentioned before---a lot of doctoring can be done in a photo editor like photoshop or similar program

[spinner1]

i am intimidated by it...

also too much focusing and fiddling...
Means...
Trout out of water too long...

[spinner1]

And I didn't get the right photo...
Too Bad....so sad.

[spinner1]

gonna fiddle with it.

If it doesn't cause longer time out of water for fish...

Will use it.