April Photo Challenge
I don’t know a thing about photography. But nevertheless it is a topic that I find very interesting. So, in order to try and develop some skills and learn how to use all of the settings on my camera I have set myself a little challenge. Once a month (or maybe fortnightly) I will grab my cam and go to a random place and take photos until I have at least 3 photos I am happy with. I will then post them and you guys can berate me and tell me how much I suck, and hopefully give me some pointers to help me suck a little bit less :p
Today’s location was Hikarigoka Park (biggest park in Tokyo?) which is a few minutes from my house. I was mainly snapping people who were doing some sort of sports activity.
So the first photo I tried to take was of a kid throwing a baseball against a wall. I wanted to try and get a photo with him on the far right side and the ball in flight on the far left side. I kind of succeeded with the positioning, but the photo itself is kinda meh.. 
I took it on sports mode to try and catch fast movement but couldn’t really get a sharp shot. Any tips on taking shots of moving people without getting blurs? Is there too much wasted space in the background?
Second photo was of some dudes playing basketball. I took quite a few shots but sadly this is the best I could get. I dunno, maybe if I got it a few split seconds faster while the ball was still in his hands it would have looked better? Or if I actually got the hoop in the photo as well?
Third photo was of some ladies doing tai-chi. Maybe I could have zoomed in more or got a better angle? Also what do you think of the colour? Too dull, too dark?
CONCLUSION:
So what I learnt today is that 3x zoom just does not cut it… I think I missed out on a few good shots because I had to be ridiculously close to get any sort of picture. Also my reflexes suck. I was always like a second too slow and kept missing the shot I wanted to get
I am using a 7.2 mega pixel Sony T30.
So, let the berating begin lol.
Nino (55)
Michael Flux (40)
lina (31)
Jamaipanese (26)
Chris B (20)
sixmats (20)
Renee Khan (18)
Rachel (16)
Tokyo Grindhouse CEO (16)
Dutch Donut Girl (15)
April 18th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Ah, how I love critiquing photography, and how I love photography in general. ^_^
There is really something that applies to all of your photos.
You say you always get a short too early/too late, well yeah, thing is, even if your reflexes are great, it really is hard to get a perfect shot in one go on a point & shoot camera, they just don’t click fast enough, always a slight delay with them as opposed to dSLRs which are always instant because they’re well, professional cameras.
What I would recommend you try is to use the burst mode more. If you don’t know what that is, a quick description of it would be - rather then click and it takes one photo, you click/hold and it takes 3-5 photos in a row with a 0.2-0.3 second difference.
So once you figure out how to work it, always start shooting half a second before you anticipate something to happen and keep shooting till it finishing happening. That way rather then just having 1 shot at it, you get 3-4-5-6 or however much your camera can do in a row. However much you’re still increasing the chances of getting the perfect photo by 3-4x.
Thats how I always take my photos, for every one that I put up on my site there are typically a dozen more that get rejected. I mean like in the photowalk article,s I just post 90% of what I have since there isn’t really much happening there. But for example on the Jan 5 night shoot post, I posted maybe 15ish photos or so, in reality I took over 80. Then however much I posted of the breakdancers, I took over 90 photos of them.
And of course ultimately practice makes perfect. Its not as if I learned everything I can do overnight. I’ve been shooting for over a decade now :p
Oh and on a final note, don’t be afraid of manual mode, with it you can get the best possible photos. The “sports” “action” “night” modes are usually such crap even on the high end cameras… I usually just go with full manual for most of my photos.
But anyways, good luck and looking forward to seeing more of your photos. ^_^
April 18th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
@Michael Flux
woah, sick sick reply. Thanks man much appreciated. I am messing around with my camera now and found the burst mode. I might go outside now and mess around with it to see how it works before it gets dark.
I will also try and mess around with the manual mode and see how that works out.
Any thoughts on zoom? what is the minimum zoom you would get if u bought a point and shoot camera?
April 18th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
You can practice tomorrowヾ(( ゜)д( ゜))ノ♪
April 19th, 2009 at 2:00 am
I just got an 18x zoom fugifilm digital. It’s great! Cool pics you took. Thanks for stopping by.
April 19th, 2009 at 5:18 am
@Prometheus
I would think 10x would suit fine. Of course if you’re going for 10x make sure that its a nice big lens and not one of those tini tiny miniature things. Its much better to have a 3MP camera with a nice lens then a 20MP with a camera-phone lens.
The camera that I recommend to pretty much everyone these days is the Lumix TZ5 A great camera all around. Nice big lens when extracted, but folds into almost nothing, quite good night capabilities and so on. Plus Lumixes always had great colors so thats also a huge plus. I personally use a Lumix LX3 for my everyday cam.
April 19th, 2009 at 10:09 am
@Michael Flux
Interesting, the TZ5 is exactly the model I have, great little camera.
April 19th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
hey found you via blogctalog
you got some good action shots here
April 19th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
@Poyu
Yup, took quite a few today
@Rainy
Likewize, thanks for stopping by. 20x zoom must be super sick. You can take some real candid photos if you are that far away.
@Michael Flux
Thanks for the rec. I will see what I can do about attaining one. 10x zoom would be nice. It should make life much more easier!
@ThePenguin
Do you have any samples?
You have my future camera I see
@chloe
Hehe thanks for stopping by. Taking shots of people doing stuff is quite interesting. I will check out your blog now!
April 19th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Check this out for some excellent pics:
http://alexandregervais.com/tokyo-sundown-remix/
April 19th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Not one to criticize as I’m still learning the ropes myself. I just use the carpet-bombing approach; take a shyteload o’ pics and hope one out of every 50 or so is a keeper. I sometimes shoot the same scene 20 times or more.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:40 am
I am still learning but I can give you a few pointers
Try using a faster shutter speed to prevent blurring on fast moving objects like in your second picture.
I have a photoblog too, needs work and due an design upgrade though
http://www.eyeshrine.com
April 20th, 2009 at 9:35 am
April 20th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
@ourmaninabiko
Just checked it. Sick pics. Makes me sad lol
@billywest
And yeah, I went out today and shot the same thing a really high amount of times
Hehe I just googled carpet-bombing and read the definition. I guess i will start using that in terms of photography aswell
@Jamaipanese
Cool, I think sports mode might be the fastest my camera goes. I guess that might just be its limit… I have seen your photobloge before. You got some nice snaps. I like the black bird
@ThePenguin
Thank you. I have just taken a look. That 10x zoom has better quality than when I max out the 3x zoom on my current camera. I think I will try and pick one up next month or something