Horny toad

[waltesefalcon]

We had a thunderstorm roll through earlier, so the horny toads are out sunning themselves and looking for a meal this afternoon. I saw one in the back and ran back in the house to grab my camera. I took Greg's advice and tried to get down on his level to take a few shots. I also decided to play with the f stop as low as it would go on my 18~140mm lens. I have read that this gives that out of focus look to everything in the fore and backgrounds. I was playing with fire on that, as many of my photos I am ever so slightly focused on the spikes on the horny toad's back instead of its head, or a blade of grass about a quarter of an inch away from his head. I did manage to get to photos, out of eight, that I am relatively enthused about. The focus on each is just slightly off, both just to the rear of the horny toads head, but not so much that the head is fully out of focus. I'll have to practice with this aspect of the f stop a bit more.

I now have a new 128GB memory card, so instead of just shooting in Jpeg, I also have an NEF for each photo. These Jpegs have been resized to 58% to accommodate the BCF servers.

This was was taken at ISO-200, f/5, 1/500.

ISO-200, f/5.3, 1/500

 

[DrEntropy]

If you raise the ISO to 800, you can stop down the aperture to somewhere around ∱11 and get a deeper DoF. And concentrate the focus point on his eye(s). With a relatively static subject you can set the camera with the center button on the AF-M switch on the front and use the control dials to set AF-C (continuous as the back focus button is held down) and dial "S" (spot focus).

 

[DrEntropy]

I took liberties with your first image.

 

[GregW]

Walter, were you using manual or auto focus?

 

[waltesefalcon]

Walter, were you using manual or auto focus?

Manual. Until I get a good feel for this photography thing I'm going all manual, all the way.

 

[GregW]

Personally, I don't like the direction Nikon has gone with regards to focusing screens. They use a matte finish on their screens with no split focus prism like the old SLR cameras had. Nikon wants you to use autofocus, which in my book, makes a photographer less skilled. Working within Nikon's parameters, in the lower left of your view finder, are two triangles flanking a dot. If you see the dot, you're in focus. If you see a triangle, turn your focus the way the triangle points (in relation to the top of the lens). There should be several black squares in the view finder. When you half press the shutter, one of those squares will turn red. That red square is the active focusing spot. You can move the active focus around using the arrow keys on the back of your camera. Moving it off center allows you to focus on something to the side where you have composed a frame (think rule of thirds). Or, you can keep the active focus in the center, half press the shutter while focusing. Then, when you have the green dot, compose your frame and take the picture. Additionally, you can use live view on the LCD screen and zoom in on what you want in focus.
If you know all this, my apologies.
There is a company in Taiwan that modifies old SLR split screens to modern digital cameras. I modified my own for one of my cameras.

 

[waltesefalcon]

Personally, I don't like the direction Nikon has gone with regards to focusing screens. They use a matte finish on their screens with no split focus prism like the old SLR cameras had. Nikon wants you to use autofocus, which in my book, makes a photographer less skilled. Working within Nikon's parameters, in the lower left of your view finder, are two triangles flanking a dot. If you see the dot, you're in focus. If you see a triangle, turn your focus the way the triangle points (in relation to the top of the lens). There should be several black squares in the view finder. When you half press the shutter, one of those squares will turn red. That red square is the active focusing spot. You can move the active focus around using the arrow keys on the back of your camera. Moving it off center allows you to focus on something to the side where you have composed a frame (think rule of thirds). Or, you can keep the active focus in the center, half press the shutter while focusing. Then, when you have the green dot, compose your frame and take the picture. Additionally, you can use live view on the LCD screen and zoom in on what you want in focus.
If you know all this, my apologies.
There is a company in Taiwan that modifies old SLR split screens to modern digital cameras. I modified my own for one of my cameras.

Greg, that was very informative. Thank you for sharing. The next time I'm out with my camera I'll mess around with it and try to learn how to utilize it to my advantage.

 

[DrEntropy]

Or, you can keep the active focus in the center, half press the shutter while focusing. Then, when you have the green dot, compose your frame and take the picture.

This has been my preferred method, a holdover from analog cameras where the split-screen/microprism was fixed in the center. Moving the active focusing point(s) around with the third control seems an extra effort. I suppose if the camera is tripod mounted for static subjects like landscapes, it would work okay.

 

[GregW]

Same here. Once you start moving the point around, it will most likely be in the wrong spot for the next shot. Just make it muscle memory. Center the subject, meter and focus, compose, shoot.

 

[waltesefalcon]

I plan on keeping the point of focus in the center. Moving it around would be too much for my little brain to keep track of.