Photo Quality Tips or FAQ

Hi all,

I am new here. Some of you may have noticed me wandering around.

I have and can take pictures of many tropical plants so I started uploading some for plants that didn't seem to have a lot of pictures. In my wanderings I have been quite impressed with the quality and the detail shown in so many photos and when comparing them to some of mine, mine seemed to come up a bit short in the detail and sharpness of the image.

So I went to the photo forum, read the FAQ's for uploading images again and read my camera manual again to see what I could do to improve. Apparently my easy and handy Kodak CX 7300 isn't the best for detail. I'd have to buy a new camera to match the quality I see in so many of your photo's.

My pictures aren't totally horrible by any means, but if they can be better I'd like to try. So I am making a suggestion I guess that somewhere there could be a short little FAQ or even a link to the photo forum where a camera savvy person could do a quick lesson on getting the most out of these simple digital cameras that so many of us have for taking better plant pictures.

What do you think?

A sample of my better work.

ilima

ilima,

I don't think there's anything wrong with your photos. I've seen the ones you've submitted so far and I think they're great! They show the leaves pretty close up, and that helps a lot when trying to identify a plant, which is what a lot of people use PlantFiles for. :)

There is a photography forum here at DG, did you find that one? http://www.davesgarden.com/place/f/camera/all/ There's lots of great tips in some of those threads if you feel like taking a peek.

Thanks Joan for your vote of confidence. Perhaps I am being too self critical. Perhaps I am being overly impressed. The detail in Kell's pictures of the Protea flowers was so good it got me wondering how did she do that?

Yes I went to the photography forum here and from reading there and my camera manual I found I should not get any closer than 2.6 feet to my subject with my camera. That is a good thing to know.

In my other wanderings last night I also came upon some truly stunning photos. I guess I was being inspired to try and take better pictures. That is a good thing. I just know that for now I have to work with the camera I have which does take really good pictures. I was looking for tips for all us cheap digital camera owners.

I have to share this one picture I found. It took my breath away. It isn't mine so I do not want to copy and repost it so I will link to it where the artist can get full credit. Perhaps it has been all over the internet and has been seen by many already, but it was my first time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/supriya/88863072/in/set-72057594082362998/
Inspiring!

ilima

That is a really great photo. It's so clear and crisp. I can see what you mean about wanting to be able to take photos like that. I've never been one to have the patience to try to figure out how. :)

There is actually a huge variation in the quality of photos on this site, and yours is certainly not near the worst. However, your photo seems to be a relatively low pixel photo (comes over a bit smaller than some). I don't think it's necessarily the quality, but the number of pixels. Some members have an incanny ability to photograph things with nearly perfect unreal clarity. You should ask one of them how they do it (for example Xenomorph's photos are outstanding and always show perfect focus and color- good person to ask how they do it... someday I will ask, too).

I have not checked this thread in a while.

Thanks Palmbob for that info. It is on my list to do a test of sorts with my camera. The camera has four photo quality settings and I use the lowest one because it makes pictures of a file size (kb's I think) that are easiest and smallest for e-mail and the web.

I want to try the highest quality setting which makes gigantic pictures, way too big for the screen where you have to scroll the picture all over the place, and try cropping them down to the plant I want to show. Then I will compare a cropped photo to another picture of the same plant on the e-mail size setting and see if there is any difference in the detail clarity.

ilima

I think a lot can be done in learning your camera's strengths, getting very familiar with what works well with it, and learning good post-processing techniques. Here are examples of shots taken with your model camera:

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/North_America/United_States/photo369180.htm
http://fotos.felipebarriga.cl/slideshow.php?set_albumName=kodak7300
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/cx7300_samples.html

It doesn't look like macros are its strength, but you may experiment and find yourself pleasantly surprised! Nice thing about digital is, it doesn't cost you to learn.