A Cow

[Catalina]

A Bucolic landscape.
weeds (unwanted) on the foreground
too much sky

Please c & c

Cordially,

Catalina

[Mike Buckley]

too much sky

The sky makes the image for me. Without it, the lighting is rather boring. The sky provides negative space that makes the cow more interesting with it than without it.

Try cropping at the bottom to eliminate about half of the of the foreground and its uninteresting parts and to provide an aspect ratio that is not so tall and narrow. Then clone to eliminate the foreground weed on the right side and the two in the middle.

[Geoff F]

Yes, I would crop from the bottom as Mike suggests. Probably end up with a 4 x 5 ratio image.

You could afford to lose a little from the right side as well, if this is needed to fit into a fixed size ratio.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Catalina,

I can see within the Exif data that this shot along with the girl in the greenhouse has had the camera options set to, soft focus and soft contrast. Are you aware of doing this?

Grahame

[JPS]

Hi Catalina,
I agree in general with the comments above.
As I have had half an hour spare today, I had a little play with your very nice picture, to show how I would have processed it; hope you don't mind. If you would like me to remove it just let me know and I will take it down.
Thanks for sharing,
John

[Stagecoach]

Hello Catalina,

Following on from my previous comment and wish to assist your learning I am becoming more confused as to what you are doing with exposure control.

From the Exif data of this image the significant data is as follows;

Shooting Mode - PROGRAMMED AUTO
Aperture - f11
Speed - 1/500s
Exposure Compensation - -(minus) 4.7EV
Metering mode - Matrix
ISO - 400

Looking at the scene and then the shooting data I can not understand why the need for an exposure compensation of -4.7. In the Programme Auto mode I would have expected much better exposure control from the mode in use. The exposure metering mode 'Matrix' evaluates a large area of the scene, averages it and generally gives reasonable good results.

As a test I set my camera to 'Programme Auto' mode with no compensation and shot a view that contained 50% bright sky. I then dialled in -4.7EV exposure compensation and took another shot taking care to frame the view exactly the same. You can see from the two shots the very significant difference a 4.7EV compensation makes. Whilst I have a slightly different Nikon to yours I believe there would be very little difference in exposure control to your model.

1/320s, f9, 0.0EV Compensation, ISO200

Note, looking at this RAW file there is very slight clipping of some white cloud that can be fully removed by pulling back the exposure by 0.75 in ACR or by 80% of the recovery slider, basically well exposed considering the scene.

1/1600s, f20, -4.7EV Compensation, ISO200

As can be seen -4.7EV gives a totally unusable image.

So what exactly is happening here?

Are you measuring and then offsetting the exposure compensation with the camera pointing at one part of the scene, locking this setting and then moving the camera to a different part of the scene which has different lighting conditions? This would also be applicable to some of the other anomalies looking at the data from other images.

Some help from others on this theory would be appreciated even if to say I have overlooked something obvious.

Grahame

[Catalina]

You are right on the point Grahame, I pointed the camera to different places before taking the photo. as I have problems calculating the time of exposure, I am surely making the same mistake once and twice and three times.
As for the general explanation I am sorry that I am ignorant and cannot arrive to a conclusion.
I barely understand what you are saying, although I put all my effort.
I am going to keep this tread until I will be studying formally and ask the professors to explain to me what are you saying.
lets go step by step. When you are talking about exposure you are taking about aperture, right?
these are the photos of a very beginner photographer and I am sure that I made those types of mistakes not only once, but twice or three times.
Now I understand that i should not move the camera around because if I get different amounts of light from every position, that I point the camera. Yes I want to know what the others have to say about this erratic mistakes, point them to me and explain in a way I can understand better.

Thanks a lot for your interest, Grahame.

Cordally,

Catalina

[Catalina]

Hi Catalina,

I can see within the Exif data that this shot along with the girl in the greenhouse has had the camera options set to, soft focus and soft contrast. Are you aware of doing this?

Grahame

The camera options set to, soft focus and soft contrast

I was pointing here and there, because the auto focus was damaged, and i was trying to find ways to focus the scene focusing manually.Yes I guess I had the camera set to soft focus and soft contrast. Now, how do I do the next time?
set the camera how?
Thank you for your patience with me.But what should I set the camera to? To strong focus and strong contrast.

Cordially,

Catalina

My English is precarious its a caw.

[Stagecoach]

Hello Catalina,

Thank you for the reply.

When the camera is set to 'Programmed Auto' mode (P on the dial) the camera automatically adjusts Shutter Speed and Aperture for what it considers is optimal exposure. This mode is recommended for snapshots and situations in which you want the camera to take control of the exposure.

The darkness or lightness of a resulting image when taken is determined by the exposure to light that the sensor has seen. This exposure is determined by three things, Aperture f No (size of diaphragm opening), Shutter Speed (the time that the shutter allows light to the camera sensor), and, ISO (sensitivity of the sensor).

When the camera is pointed at a scene and is in 'Programmed Auto' mode P it's light metering system adjusts both the Aperture and Shutter Speed to what it considers best settings. The settings are determined by the camera measuring and averaging the light in the scene and are 'locked' when you press the shutter button and hold it half way down. If you were then to point the camera at a different area of the scene with different lighting the 'locked' settings would be incorrect.

I will leave it at that for now and if you have any questions on this explanation please ask.

Can you also let me know please why and what you are basing these Exposure Compensation adjustments between values of 2 to 4.7 on that you are entering for a number of images you have posted. This will greatly assist in understanding what is happening.

On another note, I would suggest you undertake what is called a 'Two Button Reset' (page 38 of the manual) on the camera that will return all significant settings to 'Default'.

Grahame

[Stagecoach]

Hello Catalina,

One thing I omitted to mention is that when you make adjustments to 'Exposure Compensation' to offset the settings that the camera has automatically selected for the exposure the adjustment amount (e.g. -2EV) remains set even when your camera is turned off.

The consequence of this can be that when you turn the camera back on and use it again if you overlook it and do not reset it to 0.0 the camera will expose further images incorrectly.

This Exposure Compensation is one of the parameters which is reset to 0.0 (zero) if you undertake a 'Two Button Reset) as mentioned above.

Grahame

Grahame