Benjamin's Page

Hey Ben, I was begining to think you were on furlough or something. Great to hear your doing well and you have a new camera to play with. Here are a few ideas for your question on soft pics.

Softness can mean a couple of things; Soft focus for example is the lack of crisp clear edges of the images. Another thing could be like a foggy sort of exposure where the contrast is "shallow" and the colors seem a little faded. It can also mean a slight movement of the camrea during the exposure. All these occurance can be easily remidied with a little attention and a few things to watch out for.

The first one is the auto focus feature of your camera might be looking at the wrong spot, perhaps just to the side of your subject or the immediate back wall. Look at your owners manual and look up something called the "auto focus point" or something like that. There you'll see how to set up your auto functions to look at several things or just one in the center. You'll see some or all of the L.E.D.s in your viewfinder light up. Your will use one of the function wheels or button to tab to the area that you want your camera to pay attention to when focusing the lens. Again, the instructs are unique to the brands so what might work for Canon, won't nessarily work for Nikon.
The next area, is the contrast of your subject field. I'm sure your checking the lens for cleaniness, including the back lens. Use a cloth specifically designed for lenes or you can cause a lot of damage to the lens. Then check to see that you have plenty of light. If your using indoor lighting, like flouresent or soft light, then you may also get images that seem to have shallow color depth. Checking the "white balance" or color index function of your camera will help. Again, these instruction are in your manual under the White Balance or AWB setting.
Another more common culprit is slight camera movement during the shutter exposure. It is very slight and dependant on how you hold your camera or set the shutter speed. General rule of thumb is to have your shutter speed number higher that the focal length of your lens setting. For example, if you are shooting with your lens at 170mm, then your shutter speed should be no slower than 250th of a second. Aperture priority and shutter priority settings on your camera will help with that. Unless you switch to full "manual" mode, but you should have a good understanding of the basic exposure concepts.

Well, there you have it, just a few things that can soften up an image. There are a goodly number of things that can cause less than desirable exposures. Take a lot of pictures. When you do that, even if you know nothing about photography, chances are you'll make a mistake and getting something right. That's why my three year old grand daughter can shoot and every now and then, she does really good. Certainly, we can do much better. I hope that helps. Really great to hear your doing ok. Nice "Re-up" pics.

Hello Benjamin, thank you for serving! Looking forward to seeing your photos.

Hi all, I would like to inform you about what I have read from my former friend G, or Gabriel Popa, after which I felt free to ban him from two groups he was a member of, that is the constructive criticism group, and the Street photographer group.
I believe that it was the least can be done after such insults, but I would let you judge by yourselves.
Here is the latest comment I read from G


At 4:45pm on June 3rd, 2008, G. said…
I remember you was one of the funny guys who left me on my front page a message about "stupid" isnt it? The other Ill-will moron was a yankee doctor in arts Helmut . You, both are assholes talking about my comments and I delete you from my list. I thought are 2 yankees , here is a french european unfortunately . I thought french people are romanians friends, but you have the same smart ass atitude like your american friends and jewish. The sun is rising in your ass , and think we are stupid people.So do you have any special problems with me?
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Here is my answer to this:
Hey G, or Gabriel Popa, or who ever you may be called, as it seems you have changed your name at least twice since you are here,
. You got it all wrong, as I have not any kind of special problems with you, but I am afraid you have one with me it seems. I think you got in a big misunderstanding, because I left a comment on your page based on your own comment on J Marie's Photograph entitled " old barn", in which I understood you were complaining about some people are finding your comment not academical enough. I have since then read that comment and I have found out that anyway it didn't mean at all what you said it did, and was not scornful against you as you said it did. I thereby apologise to Helmut, whose words I got wrong due to your even interpretation. The word stupid was not aimed at you as it seems you believed, but to that kind of comment I was thinking you were talking about (still, I can assume I was referring to a certain type of comment, and not giving out to anyone personally). So you got it completely wrong. As I misunderstood the comment you were referring to, I' mentioned it as stupid To support and encourage you to provide personal and aesthetic comments as you usually do, assuming you were a sensible and sensitive person.
That was my turn to get it completely wrong, as your harsh words, insults of the worst kind definitely show the person you really are. On your latest message to me, you not only insult myself with your crude words, but many others, to whom you spit social, cultural and, worst of all racial despite and disgust.
Your words just short that you are much more ill- will then the people you mention in a very scornful way. You deleted me from your list: so be it, and I won't miss it!
It seems you do not realise how scornful and dangerous your attitude and words are. I do not intend to insult you, but I can definitely tell you that you are pitiful.
I will be true and honest with you, so I'll let you know that I have at that stage banned you from the Street photography group and the constructive criticism group I am an administrator of. I will besides send your niceties to all members of the above mentioned groups, to all my friends and all your friends, and will as well report them to the administrators to ask they ban you, as I believe a community do not meet someone like you.
God help you

G wrote as well (I believe he deleted this comment):
8, G. said…
So there are two morons who interfered with my comments without any reason, both are doctors in Arts: Mr Ichtus and Mr. Helmut. One of them posted here a message with the word "stupid" inside, and thats why this asshole diaspeared from my list and the other smart jewish or german asshole I found is not yankee as i thought the smart ass is Tasmanian. A tasmanian german language jewish or something like that, these guys are like cameleons, they are hidden , are using german names, Weissman, Roth, etc now is Helmut. I hate these ill-will guys, whereeveer I found one , I feel like I'm in danger and be ready for the worst. I apologise this time because I blaimed the yankees. At least this time they was out of trouble. Any way they treat us as not reliable and hostile people , and they kiss in the ass the jewish and hungarians who are making the rules against us . Whatever ,I found the two guys on my black list too from now here.

Hi Ben, We're still thinking of you. Have you figured out that new camera yet? Lets see what you see. Be safe.

Hi Ben, Yes, you shared a bad bit of news. My sympathies and thoughts are with you and your buds. About all I can offer is that breievment is an important step at getting back to normal. When you get there, let me know how you did. I lost a plane load of friends and mates in the early seventies in Viet Nam and to this day, I take a few minutes every year to remember them. It's a hard path that warriors live with. And a side the recruiters never tell you about. Tell your circle of friends My heart is broken and grieve with them and you. Good luck my young friend. Keep the faith.

Ben; We are missing you. Are you still there?

Thanks for your comment, Benjamin. I was very fortunate indeed to see all these places. Looking forward to see more of your fotos.

Well good luck and welcome to MyShutterSpace.

Here's to us newbies. :)

My pleasure. Thanks for your consideration dear Benjamin!