Its all in the eyes - C&C please

[MrMojoRisin]

Its my second day with my first DSLR in hand so I want to share a couple of pictures with you.

Just came outside of my office and these two guys were waiting for me outside like every day. But today was a bit different day. Today I came with my new equipment in hand.
Ok please say your thoughts and advices. and I hope you enjoy it.





ok so I think that my focus should have been on both eyes on this one .
Any advices on how to achieve that?


I love the eyes on this one, but the sky really ruined the photo for me. Too much white. well I was a bit under when I took it so it was expected.

[Peter Ryan]

Hi neon and welcome to CiC.

You have a good subject to work with here. Some comments on them and I will try and answer your question on focus.

#1. I like the use of the tree and cat looking straight at the camera but I would like to have seen a little more room at the bottom. I feel the cat is a little cut off. I like the neutral background and shallow DOF to create the blur

#2. I really like the close up and way the cat is off to one side and looking back into the frame – as you say the eyes have it. This is a good use of the negative space (the empty bits) by creating an emotional line into that area of the image. Same comment on background here.

#3. In this one you have put the cat in the centre of the frame and have too much room on the sides. Also the background includes a large blown out area. You have already noted this in your comments. Bright areas like this draw the viewer away from the subject and create conflict. Compare this with the other two backgrounds and you will see what I mean.

You should have a number of Focus Modes in the menu section of you camera. The standard default setting is ‘closest to the camera subject priority’, which means the camera focuses on the closest thing to it i.e. the cats nose and with a shallow DOF the eyes can become blurred – a bit like the background but as they not as far away they are not as blurred.

If you are shooting in Auto mode you might not be able to change the focus setting, as some cameras revert back to the default setting in Auto mode.

Shooting in Program, Aperture or Shutter priority you should be able to change the focus mode to Single Area focus. Now the little black rectangle in the middle of the screen is the target area for focus. You can point this at whatever you want to be in focus, like the eyes, hold the shutter release button down half way to auto focus then recompose and shoot. Now you have control over this very important area of photography.

Good luck and show us some more of your delightful cat.

[mariejo]

Hi,
love the pix #1 and #2...Lovely !


-Peter, I really liked your comments, it's going to help myself so much as well...

[Sahil]

Hi Neno,
Congrats on your newbie. I just love the first one. Love the pose, cat has given to you!!

[wilgk]

A lovely start Neno well done!
I am sure Peter's advice will help you a great deal - we look forward to seeing some more of your work