Some test shots, still learning!!!!

[theantiquetiger]

Just a few shots around my house, practicing with different setting on camera. These images have not been touched with any software yet, but I did just download Gimp

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r198/theantiquetiger/photography/vases.jpg

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r198/theantiquetiger/photography/tablefruit.jpg

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r198/theantiquetiger/photography/statuesepia.jpg

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r198/theantiquetiger/photography/statueflash.jpg

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r198/theantiquetiger/photography/statueblue.jpg

[theantiquetiger]

The bronze scupture is about 8" tall (sorry, mostly Canadians here, 20.5 cm). I tried to get a close up shot of just the faces and my camera would not let me (even in manual). If zoomed out a little it would let me, but I wanted the two faces to completely fill the image. Other than zooming out and cropping later, is there any way of obtaining this with my camera?

(FYI, I am somewhat ADHD and this site has unleashed the photographer in me, so let me know if I get too annoying. I could bombard this site with a ton of questions. When it comes to my other hobby, collecting LSU, I am one of the top experts at it, and a lot of people come to me with a ton of questions. I don't mind it because of my love of the hobby)

[mbrager]

Welcome to the forum. I was interested in your comments in another post about your main hobby. I'd never heard of that before. So thanks for the education.
About these photos, although you say they are straight out of the camera, how do you account for the varying tones and saturations. Perhaps you changed some in camera settings to achieve that? I also see by your EXIF data (attached to the photo in a small file) that you have a fairly wide lens. Most shots are around 20 mm. This is a relatively wide angle, so I might assume your lens doesn't have much of a macro or close up distance for focusing. So what you want to achieve may be a limitation of your lens. Looking forward to your contributions and questions.

[theantiquetiger]

My camera has different settings for tones, sepia, blue, green, & bronze (or something, I used it on the first shot above). I'm at work so I don't have my camera with me.

As for my lense, I only have the standard lense that comes with the EOS (18-55 I think)

As for the size of the photos, I shoot them at max setting on my camera, but I use photobucket and it automatically downsizes them to something acceptable to forums.

As for my other hobby, I actually have a forum for it. I have about 180 members but only about 30 really active members. The site is theantiquetiger.proboards.com. Check it out, it's just a bunch of idiot LSU fans like me collecting anything and everything related to LSU.

[theantiquetiger]

As I was starting the fun thread about "pictures of three", I posted this picture and as it was still in full frame of my monitor, I stood up to go get a drink and because of the tilt of my monitor, I saw the picture below. Other than the blues around the fruit, I love the metallic look (I took the picture with my iphone). Just thought it was pretty cool.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r198/theantiquetiger/photography/tablefruit.jpg

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r198/theantiquetiger/fe5b5e8f.jpg

[thoughton]

The problem with your focussing is that you are hitting the minimum focus distance for your lens. Some lenses focus much closer than others, this is usually called close focus ability, or sometimes the maanufacturers even call it 'macro' although technically it isn't. It's fairly common for telephoto zooms to have a pseudo 'macro' function.

With your 18-55 kit lens you can greatly increase your magnification by using an extension tube, a little ring that fits between your camera and your lens. All it does is move the lens further away from the camera, there is no glass in the tube. Tubes vary in cost, depending if they allow autofocus and/or auto exposure. Fully manual tubes are dirt cheap, perhaps around ten bucks on ebay. Fully auto ones can be a couple hundred depending on manufacturer. Longer tubes mean more magnification but are harder to use.

Another option would be a close up lens which is like a filter that screws on to the business end of your lens. These usually are pretty lousy optically, but there are exceptions. Reasonably-priced exceptions include the Raynox 150 and Raynox 250 models which should be in the $50-100 range.