richard Loc: Mamaroneck, NY

I am a newbie trying to take good pictures. I only own a little point & shoot Canon SD1300 and I borrowed a Canon xTi with the kit lens to get started. Down the road I intend to purchase my own DSLR.
Here are a few pictures that I took over the past couple of weeks. Sorry there are no captions. The one with all the trash is the clean up from hurricane Irene.

richard Loc: Mamaroneck, NY

Did I do this wrong?

JimH Loc: Western South Jersey, USA

No, everything seems fine. Not bad at all. The one with the gulls on the pier might have benefited from using a different aperture to increase your depth of field. See how the foreground bird on the right side is out of focus? Other than that, they aren't bad at all. Here's one of mine with a similar scene, also taken soon after Irene passed by. This is the old ferry dock pilings in Pennsville, NJ

Gulls on the pilings, Pennsville NJ

Toni's Vision Loc: Quincy, Illinois

Hello Richard and welcome. I am new to photography as well so I will not be able to give any real technical advice. I only just joined this forum last night as well. I really like the photographs you posted.. they all give the viewer a chance to see the world through your eyes. I really like the ducks.. there's alot of detail in their feathers and the ledge they rest on. The eagle is great as well however I am wishing to see the entire bird. That was my first thought.. the wings were cut off but birds in flight are very difficult to capture. And the dock full of birds is a great view point.. I love it but some birds are out of focus. Perhaps a greater depth of field would make it better. Again.. I am as far from an expert as one can be so take my words with a grain of salt. If you like them then that is most important.

arphot Loc: Massachusetts

I like your compositions. The bird is a tad off focus, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. I might have gotten a more even shot so that the railings were aligned. My guess is that you have about 3 or 4 more feet on the right than you do on the left, therefore throwing off the balance. If you had evened it off and the blurry bird was right in the foreground, then picture would have been perfect with the DOF.

richard Loc: Mamaroneck, NY

Here's another one, perhaps a little better.
Anyone have any comments positive or negative on this or the other pictures?

gessman Loc: Colorado

Generally speaking I think you came out pretty well for not having much experience and using a loaner camera. I don't think I can really add much to what the others have said but I'll give it a shot. There are a few ideas that seem to have some merit when it comes to convention and I have to keep reminding myself of some of them over and over. You may find yourself doing the same for a period of time. Like your first shot, what appears to be an Osprey nest. I think the shot could have been improved some if you had not cut the one bird's wing off and if the nest pole was straight. Still, the leaning nest pole can be fixed, while the absent wing tip can't. You'll want to be conscious of cutting off wings, arms, legs, heads, etc., outer parts of your subject unless you want to crop in real tight on other parts of the subject.

The second shot, the gulls, can also be brought into a more conventional view with a little work. You can crop the shot and possibly get rid of the bird on the right that's pretty badly out of focus. It is a good thing to try to frame your subject/s when you're taking the picture and then you won't have to fix 'em up afterwards. As was suggested, you could have mostly fixed it up front by increasing your depth of field but that'll come later. Depth of field is a very important aspect of photography and should be one of the first things you become an expert about.

The colorful canoes are a nice touch but the dock is cutting across the picture at an angle that's leading the eye out of the frame. I might think about moving my perspective ahead and to my left and allowing that dock pointer to keep the eye in the picture and fill the frame more with the brightly colored canoes. You usually want to endeavor to fill the frame with either your subject or at least the most appealing part of the scene.

I really like the ducks and you've handled them well. I might get a little lower, move more to the front of them, and filled the frame just a little more.

The other two pics, the doors and the pile of ruined goods certainly depict the meaning they were designed to convey and do it in a manner that would be hard to improve upon but they are not, in my humble opinion, a thing of beauty, not that they have to be. You certainly got your point across and that's about all you can expect with subject matter such as that and what it represents to those involved.

I've taken the liberty of cropping that last gull picture you added, cropping out the blurred gull. The image is a little bit weak as regards color and contrast but that mostly comes from the time of day, position of the sun, and the relative tone and color of the subject matter - a lot to do with the darkness of the water behind all the grey and white. People who are real particular about their pictures rarely are out taking pictures after about an hour after dawn and an hour before dusk but certainly not when the sun is high overhead. That flattens out your scene and robs you of the detail in your subject. The early and late light adds a glow and long shadows which enhance dimensional perspective to your shots and almost invariably makes almost any scene look better. An exception to that is if you live in the northern half of the "sphere" during parts of the year, mostly late fall, winter, and early spring where the sun is in such a position all day that it leaves long shadows in your scene and you can get away with shooting with excellent results about any time of day. Keep shooting and studying and it'll come to you to the level of your interest and investment of your time. It's a very rewarding endeavor that you can continue to grow in the rest of your life. I think you're off to a good start. Just do it and welcome to the forum!

richard Loc: Mamaroneck, NY

Thank you for all your comments on the picture. I realize that the picture of the seagulls would of been better if I took my time and had a tripod. I was in a rush because I was on private property without permission. I will go back to that location with a proper set up and ask for permission to be there. I was thinking do you think that shot would of been better off if I was using the 50mm 1.8 lens for it?

gessman Loc: Colorado

In my humble opinion, possibly. That doesn't appear to have been a very good quality lens that you were using. No matter how badly you might have botched it due to a lack of knowledge or experience, there ought to be some part of the picture that was sharp and crisp if a good lens had been used and frankly I'm just not seeing any indication of that. I started to say that in my last post but figured I had hit you with enough already, especially since you can't do much about it at this point except go for a do-over. :-) I read in an earlier post where you are just under 70. I commend you for taking on such a potentially complicated technical endeavor at that age. I probably wouldn't but they say that mental exercise is one of the best things an ol' geezer can do. I believe that and think you're doing yourself a real favor that will reward you in a variety of ways as you go forward. I'll be 75 in February and because of cameras and computers, my mind may be about as sharp as it has ever been, I'm pleased to say. Now, if the rest of my body would just cooperate that well I think I could get some better pictures than I am now.

richard Loc: Mamaroneck, NY

I was using the Canon brand 55-250mm kit telephoto, that's why I was asking if the 50mm 1.8 would of been better if I moved closer.