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Ken and Buddy
Ken and Buddy
melissamp99


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Personification III (Basic Editing)
Camera: Sony DSLR-A100
Location: Capital in California
Date: Dec 11, 2008
Aperture: 5.0
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/20
Date Uploaded: Dec 11, 2008

 Just for fun I went down to the park to see if I could teach a Capital Rat how to drive. It only took me three hours to get this shot. What can I say I didnt have anything else to do that day.

Statistics
Place: 71 out of 75
Avg (all users): 4.1596
Avg (commenters): 3.2000
Avg (participants): 2.9000
Avg (non-participants): 4.2902
Views since voting: 676
Views during voting: 393
Votes: 213
Comments: 5
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
 Comments Made During the Challenge
12/23/2008 07:02:21 AM
A cute idea, but lacking crispness, and I think I can identify what it is. At 31k in size, I think your image is suffering from the effects of excessive JPEG compression. Using less compression and the full 150k allowed would have likely resulted in a more detailed and snappy image. Most image editors will allowyou to adjust the compression when you save the file.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/23/2008 05:34:30 AM
I'm struggling with the personification part in this shot. Technically: there is a lot of nois and blown out areas in your pic. The picture is very soft focused.

//////////// after your PM
Melissa,
in general these kind of pictures do not do well at DPC - as cute as they are. Even getting a squirel to pose does not help.
The noise you can primarily see in the grass of your background. This might have various reasons: high ISO or your crop is at 100%.
In PS these is a feature to reduce noise.
from your composition: your picture looks kind of squeezed into the frame. there is no room for the shadow of the car and the worst part: the front of the car is cut off.
With every shiny surface the reflections of the sky on these objects come out as too bright. See the surf board, the arms of the Ken and the top of the car (hood), the bottom of the entry into the car. There is only one good way to avoind this: use of a diffuser. It is a lot of effort, but the only safe way to avoid these blown out areas. THis will become even more critical if you start taking close up, macro photos or outdoor portraits.
A very simple and cheap diffuser can be a shower courtain that is semitransparent and is colorless. THis will diffuse the light enough to avoid direct sun light falling onto shiny surfaces. I know that it seems impossible to do sometimes but usually it is 'only' that you have to put in more effort to still do it. If you read up on the many-ribbon winners and the effort and time they put into each shot, I know, I understand why my pictures don't look like theirs.
Soft focus: look at the features of the dash board, look at the squirel, look at Ken's face: all of this is slightly blurred. THe sharpest part in focus seems to the the side of the car that's closest to the camera.
This tells me that your focus point was not on the squirel or Ken but somehwere on the wheels, making the rest of the pic - OOF out of focus.
You probably shot this picture handheld. AM I right? THat could be an other reason for soft focus as your hand is shaking while the camera exposes, blurring your picture. A very simple solution is a tripod, or a bean bag to stabilize your camera while you're shooting. Or lean against somthing strong like a tree or a table. All this will help to stabilize the camera. Believe it or not - breathing has an influence on sharpness. For a steady shot breath in and let about 2/3 of the air out, then hold the remaining 1/3 in and shoot. This is the most stable beathing technique.
Hope this gives you some ideas of how to improve your picture. Let me know if you need more help or have other questions.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/21/2008 01:19:20 PM
Really garish colors and high contrast. But good capture of the squirrel.
 12/19/2008 04:13:38 PM
nice shot
 12/19/2008 08:22:38 AM
funny shot - how did you get this guy to do that? the image seems compressed in an odd way
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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