Flora

[Myrtle]

The following two pics are from a trip to Australia Zoo - again my take on being artsy so feel free to critique away (please remember I only have kit lenses - and yes have started saving for better lenses).





Linda

[colin_12]

#1 is great, I like the subject and composition but maybe a bit bright for my taste.
#2 seems a bit soft to me.
Hope this helps.
Regards Colin

[Myrtle]

Thanks for the feedback Colin.
May have over done the PP in the first one and as for the softness in the second - I have decided that I should be the queen of softness since I seem to be so good at producing soft images

Linda

[radar]

Linda,

you should still be able to get some good sharp photos with the kit lenses. You just have to find their limitations and where they perform their best.

Take the first one, it is nice in sharp in the area that you were focussing on. You just need to change your aperture. You were using f5.6. That lens is better at about f8. That would also have given you a bit more depth of field. By changing your aperture, that would have slowed your shutter and that has the potential of introducing camera shake, ie soft photo. To compensate for the slower shutter speed, you can increase ISO or use a tripod.

For the second one, your shutter speed, 1/125s was too slow for the focal length 220mm you were shooting at.

Just keep experimenting until you know the limits of your gear, once you know that, you will see your photos improving.

Cheers,

André
(PS: in my signature, I used to have "If it's out of focus, it's art" )