Did you have any filters on your lens for the photos.

Only the uv filters that are permanently attached to my lenses ;)
Cheaper to scratch one of those than a new lens.
I keep a selection of grads, nd's and polarisers in my bag as well.

Uv filters are on all mine for the same reson
Just was thinking on your last two photos the church photo a nd grad may have helped out a bit

Steve

Here we go - comments and critiques happily accepted !

http://i1356.photobucket.com/albums/...pse2e2cc98.jpg

Previously, I've tended to use my camera in auto mode - this one I took with me dictating the settings (I didn't realise I'd caught a seagull in the shot until afterwards :o):
f/5.6
1/350 sec
ISO 64

I was trying to capture the mix of rolling green countryside and almost Mediterranean blue sea & sky. Maybe I should revert to auto ?

Hi Rod,

Lovely looking spot is that.
A few things I would have suggested would be to move the horizon downwards slightly to take it off centre and to lose a bit of the sea.
Maybe a slight crop of the left hand side to cut out the boat completely on that side;)
Something a bit like this...

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...pstgddsxi0.jpg

A few to discuss / critique.
 

Im not a true photo enthusiast to be honest.I bought the camera to try and take decent pics with little knowhow...all were taken with olympus sz-31mr camera.auto setting with zoom for close up shot on the flowers and partial zoom on the squirrel. Not up to the standard of you experienced guys but I am merely trying to take what might pass for interesting pics.Cheers.


http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/foru...attach/jpg.gif P1190063.jpg (140.2 KB)

http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/foru...attach/jpg.gif P3250157.jpg (117.8 KB)

http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/foru...attach/jpg.gif P5060225.jpg (128.0 KB)

http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/foru...attach/jpg.gif P5060226.jpg (129.1 KB)

Good morning Steve, can you post up some photos please where you feel the Nikon is giving the image a grey sky. I spend some time out in the bush and in the tropics where the light can be intense with red skies at sunset, deep blues, fluffy or sultry clouds :drool4: and the weather hot ++ brings different challenges :} I use a polariser on my Nikon D5000 with good effect and as you know it, it protects the main lenses from sand and dust.

Good morning Nigel. Thanks for posting these up. They are beautiful looking :bowdown:

As stated i bought the camera to try and better my photography skills.They are pics of plants in my garden, the red flower heads are an house ornament bulb with one time flowering and a squirrel at centre parcs in Nottingham.Obviously because they were taken with auto switched on , there was little skill involved,:o.I now need to try and get used to the other settings and terminology used by writers of threads such as these and improve further.Thanks for taking time to look .

On your dial you should have various settings, the first one to try would be Av (think it may be just A on a Nikon, not sure what the Olympus setting is!) which stands for Aperture Priority/value.
This setting basically controls how much of your image is in focus by adjusting the F stop value.
For example if you wished to take a landscape Vista you would generally want the whole scene to be in focus so would choose a high F stop number of say F11 or above.

If you wanted to take a picture of a subject and to make it stand out from the background then you would use a low F stop number such as F5.6 or lower.
The range of Aperture control is dependent on the Lens itself.
There are many other variables when changing these settings as changing one setting will have a knock effect to another.
For instance a large F number will slow the shutter down so in low light conditions you may need to support the camera to stop any camera shake affecting the image.

Get creative and try taking a series of the same shot changing the settings.
Make a note of the settings and when you look back at them see what one pleases you.
You will then know to try this again;)