[justkat]

response to you both – i never use AF with macro now that i have the option not to lol. (my p&s obviously didn’t let me MF) which means the problem is me. *sigh* actually, the problem is probably a combination of me and olav… i believe he had it set to his vision (not good) and i need to re-set it to my own (better than his, but far from perfect) … although i think that only applies to AF?

sadly i already did those things in Gimp. that spider was moving fast, i only got maybe two or three pix out of like 12 that were even remotely in focus and the lighting sucked…. but i have to say that i didn’t think to go to AV on that one. still learning…..

olav got me two photography books for our anniversary and while i’ve pretty much read them both cover to cover, i know i’ll have to do so again a few more times before i’ll have gotten the stuff all the way into my head… and from there it still has to make it to my eyes and hands! 🙂 however, i have learned a few things and occasionally i remember them and try them. took a picture of a bit of fence overkill today and when i popped it into my computer i found that the shallow depth of field (I hadn’t even been using a macro lens!) killed the shot. but i remembered there was something i could do about that! with the help of this ridiculous little tripod (a gorilla would have been *much* better) i cranked up the fs and tried again, with much better results. after all that, i don’t know if the photos are useful, but i was proud of myself for making it work… or at least making it work *better* 😀

/really really really really out of it. i hope i’m speaking english. if anything isn’t clear, it’s me, not you, please feel free to ask for clarification.

[justkat]

if anyone comes back to this… another thing i seem to be having trouble with, obviously, is where, exactly, is the actual point of focus. if anyone could look at this one (warning, spider)

http://65.78.140.207/gallery2/main.php/v/Kat_Galleries/faves/090510_cocooning_spider.JPG.html

and tell me if it’s got a good point of focus, i’d sure appreciate it. i don’t have any plans for submitting it — not that there’s any contest it would be suitable for anyway — i just took it because it was too cool to not photograph. but now that i have, i’d appreciate comments on this issue. thanks!

[justkat]

typing skillz… i don’t have them. =P

and orionid… the bit about having her in pieces is right anyway… =P

[justkat]

oh nice. just noticed my headline typo. =P

and when did i quote myself and say nothing, hmmmmm? i dunno, i’ve been pretty out of it lately. all the fucking drugs. i hate this. but farktography (and photography in general) helps me forget for a while.

[justkat]

3horn – ha! yes i am, but that’s not where she got her name. we were dithering about naming her and a friend came over and said without hesitation “Bob. everything can be named bob” and it stuck. 😀

millera9 – i don’t know if i could run the numbers in my own head, but those sound good to me. as i told a friend of mine, i’m trying to learn to take pretty pictures, not just pictures of pretty things. although that’s a huge over simplification, since i take pix of things most people wouldn’t find beautiful at all! we’re putting together a gallery (pix to share, not just an organizing tool, so it only has a few hundred pix and olav hasn’t done his keywords yet lol) and if you search for rust you get 7 pix. if you search for bug you get 29. =P (and one of those is a dead ladybug hahaha) but i’m babbling here…

this ‘constructive criticism’ has really helped me… not that i always agree with the every single detail of the critiques, but it really is helping me with the areas that i’m personally most concerned about right now, which are framing and lighting, in that order. not that i think that one is more important than the other, i just started on framing first, so i’m giving it slightly more emphasis in my learning curve at the moment.

for some of my pix that have done poorly, though, and even some that have done really well, all i can do is stratch my head and say ‘no accounting for taste!’ 😀

[justkat]

Despite no top 10, this last contest tied in total votes for my best effort. Because of that, i feel like I might be able to handle constructive criticism about the two that did better (having already opened up the lower placing one to helpful shredding (it really was helpful!) lol).

the two remaining pictures are:

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/farktography/in%20close/close2_post.JPG

and

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/farktography/in%20close/close3_post.JPG

My only actual question is this: I expected bob’s eye to do better than her nose; and thoughts on why it didn’t turn out that way?

My own guesses: 1) there were more eyes posted than noses, so the nose stood out more; 2) people might have mistaken the right side of the photograph as being totally blown out bokeh, but he fur just goes white rigt there, so while the focus slides away after the focus on the eye, it’s not as extreme as it it might appear Since that picture is the entirety of the original there isn’t a lot i could do about that.

/also: a day late and a dollar short? caught this spider wrapping up his lunch last night as the fly buzzed futily for hielp. gooooo spiders!!

http://65.78.140.207/TFK/mywork/090510_cocooning_spider_post.JPG

[justkat]

heehee just now told olav that while he was in the shower, another spider (not the one he shot before, but a smaller one in a different part of the yard) did jump at me. i lept backwards and found that he’d left himself a line attached to the bin and he was soon back where he started, doing the jumping spider equivalent of shaking his tiny fist at me =P

[justkat]

i get what you mean about centered shots , but with the shape of the leaf it was on, there wasn’t really a better way to frame the shot. 😯

That’s why God, in his infinite wisdom, has provided us with the crop tool 🙂

hahaha! i know i’m still learning, but i didn’t see a way to frame that differently cropping (because of the aforementioned leaf shape). or i would have. 😛

oh well, this is why i love farktography, i have been learning so much! i have to say it’s more fun to learn with successes, but sometimes more effective to learn with failures. 😉

[justkat]

that depth of field difficulty is something i’m hoping is a little better with the 50mm than with that borrowed 100mm. i guess i’ll be finding out!

Don’t feel bad anyway…my fern bud has the same # of votes and I thought that it was my most bestest most macroest of the three.

I can never figure out the voting patterns here 🙂

i don’t really feel bad, just frustrated/confused, but obviously i’m in the distinct minority here thinking that picture is in good focus lmao. i did think it was the weakest of the pix, just not by that margin lol.

[justkat]

general groupy type reply 😉

to me it looks like the face is in focus, and the little critter just has a gray face. but i can see how it could be taken that way. and maybe i’m out of focus. lol

i get what you mean about centered shots , but with the shape of the leaf it was on, there wasn’t really a better way to frame the shot. 😯

[justkat]

okay, y’all, give it to me straight, i can handle it: why isn’t my ladybug getting the votes? is it that it’s just the ladybug and nothing else? i just don’t get it. ladybugs that aren’t even in focus are way ahead of mine. i can handle sucking in a contest*, that’s all good and all, i’m used to it, i just want to know what i did wrong here.

*and i recognize that my other entries are doing okay 😉

[justkat]

obviously i should adopt this habit. i, too, have closed tabs in haste and horror and found too late that they hadn’t popped. undo-close-tab is my friend lol.

[justkat]

I don’t do the popped thing on my links, sorry. It’s a thing with me. You can always right-click on any link and choose “open in new tab or window” to have control over things.

i’ll keep that in mind (that you consistently don’t pop, that is; i knew about my options lol). out of curiosity, why not? pure bloodyminded stubbornness? 😛

[justkat]

i think it’s the extra morphine that’s making me chatty. =P

my best b-sides

http://65.78.140.207/gallery2/main.php/v/Kat_Galleries/farktography/090506/b_sides/close5_sm.JPG.html
http://65.78.140.207/gallery2/main.php/v/Kat_Galleries/farktography/090506/b_sides/close4_sm.JPG.html

heh, forgive the utter lack of modesty in the descriptions on those pages lol.

[justkat]

corsec – i liked your ‘context’ thing…. but pop your links or i will learn to leap through your monitor and strangle you. =P

/sorry, i’ve had bad pain all day, i’m a little cranky. =(
//i really did like the context thing. =)

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