kath and i were talking about her wasp nest photo yesterday and she mentioned that she has trouble focussing. is it because we started our affairs with our cameras in auto mode? is it because we are old and our eyesight is not so good? do we just not know what we are doing? even when i am using the tripod, as i did with these photos, i have trouble. not to mention that our hands aren't as steady as they could be.
i have a thing about glass. i love the word, it has so much class!
i especially love coloured glass.
little bottles, old ashtrays, chunks of coloured glass.
the above photo had a big black shadow down the side, i cropped it out.
and it's too blue.
why is that?
this one, i am not so unhappy with but it's dark.
this one i like, but the blur, what the heck?
same problem kath's wasp nest had.
this i kind of like.
you should know, i took 293 photos yesterday.
250 were blurry, lousy, out of focus, too dark, too light
but that's okay. i'm learning.
xo margie
I know not the technicalities of photography. What I do know is that I enjoy the photos on your blog, including these. I too love the bottle tops. Cool.
Posted by: Se'Lah | March 31, 2009 at 06:37 AM
You're right, missy, we are learning and that's all that matters. We are having a beautiful day here, March is going out like a lamb, the same as it came in ....
Posted by: Kath | March 31, 2009 at 08:50 AM
Love the bottom pic! I used to collect "glass" as a child. Whenever my mom would take me garage sale-ing that's what I would buy with my quarter..something made of glass.
Posted by: Andie | March 31, 2009 at 09:14 AM
I think that focus is the only thing I use my auto for anymore. I do turn it off every once in a while, but I am always afraid I won't get the BEST focus using my poor contact wearing eyes! The pics look great! The one with "the blur" seems more the cool depth of field blur than the motion blur.
Posted by: CarrieJ | March 31, 2009 at 09:17 AM
Oh...the eyes. I am using a Canon Powershot G5 that I have had for several years. It is what I have and until my ship comes in, it is what I will continue to use. The LED screen is TOO SMALL. I wear contacts and must use reading glasses to see well enough to focus the darn thing. My next camera will have a much bigger screen. Sigh.
The "too blue" thing is probably white balance. I do that frequently.
The blur...all looks like it is on purpose. At times, I can actually get better manual focus than the autofocus on my camera. Fortunately, the manual focus gives me a magnification in the middle of the screen that helps.
My problem is that what I see in the view finder is not what I get in the actual picture once it is downloaded. I often get the picture framed just so and when I see it on my computer screen, the tip of the tower is cut off. Frustrating. It happens often enough that I know it is not just me. Only problem is, I haven't figured out exactly how to compensate so I keep doing it.
I love your shots. Isn't it great that our mistakes can look like they are on purpose?
Posted by: Wanda | March 31, 2009 at 02:37 PM
I love old bottles. Sometimes blur is good. The lens could also have to do with blur if it's a macro lens cuz it will only focus on one item and kinda blur the rest. Maybe i could talk about that on my weekly photography tips sometime.....hehe. Thanks for the idea!
Posted by: Kristin | March 31, 2009 at 03:46 PM
Oh, and check my tip on white balance here to explain your "too blue" hue....
http://hellosweetworld.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/weekly-photography-tips/
Posted by: Kristin | March 31, 2009 at 03:48 PM
Amen! We are all learning!
Posted by: Soul aperture | March 31, 2009 at 07:10 PM
What lens were you using for the shots, and do you know what the aperture setting was? A shallow dof (small f numbers) will have minimal focus, w/ lots of blur. In low light like you have w/ the glass shots above, a longer shutter speed may be the reason for some blur. Even w/ a tripod, depressing the shutter button can introduce camera shake (-- oh, and if your lens has anti-vibration built in turn that off if using a tripod: the anti-vibration will introduce blur if the camera is steady). If it's something you think should be in focus and are having trouble viewing, adjusting the diopter might help.
As for colour casts, that is something that can be adjusted for using various settings on camera (as Kristin pointed out) ... I find switching to incandescent lighting when taking shots at night w/ my light bulbs helps. Do you take RAW or jpegs? Photoshop is another option for correcting WB, and is really easy to adjust w/ RAW photos.
I love the blue bottles. And the blue tones set them off nicely!
Posted by: olivia | March 31, 2009 at 09:07 PM
you have the right attitude ...I really like the last one ...thank goodness "delete" does'nt cost a cent!
Posted by: Elk | April 01, 2009 at 02:53 PM