I picked up a Nikon D7000. Im enjoying photography and have so much to learn.
Wanted to see what you guys thought, what you would do diff. as far as
ISO, Shutter and f-stop and maybe editing, color balance. I did little to no editing, i only have iphoto right now.
I started shooting in manual and these are some of my shots. Im still working on landscape. To be honest im scared
to post my shots but ill never learn unless i get critiqued.

Cabinets by bentaylor316, on Flickr" />  My dad has a cabinet business and he just installed these.


Crown by bentaylor316, on Flickr

Dog Yawn by bentaylor316, on Flickr" />

I would close down the iris some with the dog photo unless you're really trying to go for that shallow depth of field. I'll go shallow depth of field with my gigantic wrinkly dog when I want to do a sleeping dragon type of shot. Otherwise I'll crank it down to get sharper photos and have a bit more wiggle room on the focus when the dog is up and about.

I'm surprised that there is so much depth of field in that crown photo. I would have thought that 1.8 would provide a much shallower depth of field, but I guess it is only at 50mm.

From the technical side, you have the exposure and focus looking good; but with modern cameras these are getting harder to get wrong.
Other than straightening the vertical lines in the cabinet shots, things look OK from the technical point of view.

On the artistic side, the first step you need to do is formalize the "artistic vision" for the shot.

• What is the subject?


• What depth of field do you want: shallow or medium or deep?


• If the subject is moving, do you want a slower shutter speed to show the motion by blurring things or a faster shutter speed to freeze the action?


• Where do you want your subject in the frame? Centered tends to be bad. Common guidelines like the "rule of thirds" and "leading lines" can help with this.

For lots of all things Nikon, come on over to Nikonians.org.

Thanks for the replies. Yes these seem to be the easier shots. Especially with the 1.8 d. The lens is doing all the work.
Now the depth of field is the clear part right? You know some of the other shots I've taken have a smaller depth of field.
Right I should have more of an artistic mindset.
Ive had a technical mindset especially since I just started. I'll look to develope that. Thanks for the link I've been looking for a
Forum of some kind for photography like an ARF equivalent with photography'.

One thing that is hard to get clear and sharp are the "landscape" shots of even portriats with a high apature like f16 or
F22. It seems that the shots with low apature like 1.8 or 5.6 are easy with close ups. Do you guys use by pods for those with a slow shutter speed for those shots?

One more question, when taking photos in between are you ever changing parameters besides the aperture, ISO and shutter? Thank you !

Yes, depth of field is the "in focus" part of the picture. It comes in small, medium, and large corresponding to wide, medium, and narrow apertures. The "acceptable focus" area is normally a 50/50 split in front of and behind the point of focus.

As you make the aperture smaller to get more in focus, you are cutting down the amount of light that comes through the lens so you need to either increase your ISO or lengthen the shutter speed or both.
Increasing the ISO brings in more digital noise (grain) after a certain point, where depends on your camera.
Making the shutter speed longer increases the chance of camera motion blur due to your shaky hands and/or motion blur of the subject moving (not usually a problem with landscapes). VR/IS can help a little with your hands; tripods are the best but not allowed everywhere.
Everything in photography is an compromise.

For maximizing your depth of field for landscapes, take a look at articles about "hyperfocal distance".