Click to Enlarge
It’s been a bit of a quiet month photography wise – mainly because I want to take some particular sorts of images and the weather conditions have not been favourable. Last weekend I headed back down to South Arm as there was some larger waves breaking on the coast (compared to the last week of flat calm). I am not particular happy with the photos – gusty winds and cheap lenses do not result in sharp images as you will see. However I felt I should share some photos anyway.
Click to Enlarge
The aim of this photo was to use my B+W110 filter to capture surf breaking over Blackjack Rocks. The lens itself wasn’t particularly used hard (155mm out of 300), but the combination of gusty winds & light tripod resulted in vibrations causing a softer focus.
Click to Enlarge
The surf breaking on the rocks was my main reason for going down. Once again with the 70-300mm lens. Faster shutter speeds, less wind yet the image still comes out with a soft focus. This I’ll put down to the lens – it just not perform at all well when reaching is maximum focal length. at 240mm it’s reaching its limit over larger distances. Aperture was f/16.
With the strong AUD, I am getting seriously tempted by the 70-200 f4L Canon lens. Sure, its not a long a focal length, but I have little doubt the picture quality at the longer end of the lens will be better.
BUT
I would like to here your thoughts on this. I am not a professional photographer. If you have suggestions on how to make these pictures pop, please let me know in the comments.
I’m no pro, but I’ll suggest a few things that I know, which isn’t much…
1. Try BW conversions and play with contrast. Sometimes this can convert an average picture into something interesting.
2. It’s not always possible for obvious reasons, but getting closer to your subject can be better than relying on huge focal lengths.
3. Read technical reviews of your lenses and determine which apertures and focal lengths are known to produce the sharpest result. The largest aperture is almost certainly not the sharpest, and the middle focal length range may be sharper than the low or high ends.
4. This is obvious, but try a tripod. Granted, if you are using a low ISO (and I am assuming you are in reasonable light) and vibration reduction (or whatever the equivalent is on Canon) then this may be a moot point.
5. In the photo of the waves crashing on the rocks, it appears that the rocks are in focus but the rest is not. I cannot quite tell as the enlarged version on this site is still not particularly large, but I’m wondering whether you are simply slightly out of focus. Don’t discount manual focus if AF isn’t working for you. And of course it’s a DSLR so you have nothing much to lose anyway by experimenting…