Love Mailee Martin

Thank you very much for the nice words Ellen – I appreciate it!

Thanks you very much for the pointers.

It’s seems I’ve done exactly the opposite of what you suggested. The river photos were taken on a floating canoe with shaky hands. I guess IS can only do so much. Most of my photos are taken early afternoon. And thanks for reminding me that I do own a polarizer

Been thinking about your question – should almost make it a separate blog post. Here are my thoughts:

I think the Canon Rebel xsi is a great little camera – I wouldn’t change that.

As far as sharpness goes, are you using a tripod? Almost every photo I post here was captured from a tripod including the two in this post. Photoshop can’t sharpen a photo that isn’t sharp to begin with – Photoshops sharpens mainly corrects the image for different output such as prints, web use etc.

As far as the rich colors go, I must admit I love colorful scenes and go out of my way to seek them out. There are three things I do that help to emphasis rich colors.

First, I do a big percentage of my photography right around sunrise and sunset. The warm light, or even the light just after sunset does wonderful things for colors. Except for this blog entry, the other photos I have been posting from Canada lately were all taken during this time. I think if you could go back to both of your images and captured them with last light of day they would be much richer in color.

Second, I often will use a polarizer filter. People thing of this filter as a way to make your skies bluer, but they cut down in all reflections. I used a polarizer on both of these photos in this post. Had you used a polarizer on your lily pad photo, and captured it in last light, it would have very rich greens.

Third, if I can’t photograph in evening or morning light, I look for heavy overcast or even shade. Make sure you don’t underexpose the image. It seems like colors are extra enhanced during these conditions. The top photo above was captured in dark shade. The tricky part of this – shade, plus polarizer means a very slow shutter speed, so it takes patience waiting for a lack of movement in the plants.

I hope this helps.

Ron

I’ve been wondering what sets professional photos apart from amateur attemps like my own at wildlife and nature photo below (hope it’s okay to include links). When I look at your photos, the color is so vibrant, and the details is so fine. Besides the obvious difference in skill of the photographer, what can I blame? Is it the camera equiptment (canon eos rebel xsi in my case)? Photoshop ability (all the sharpening and curve in the world can’t make my photos come close to what you’ve shown us)? or flim vs. digital (not sure what you shoot)?

Ron, if you don’t mind sharing a teachable moment, where do you suggest an amateur should spent their $ and energy in their pursue of better photos?

http://picasaweb.google.com/gc1111/OnWaldenPond#5347313602658196642

http://picasaweb.google.com/gc1111/2009_06_06_sudburyRiv?authkey=Gv1sRgCOG41bCvteDgjQE#5346684308717507746

–Matt Bamberg, author, http://www.amazon.com/Quick-Secrets-Create-Winning-Photographs/dp/1598639021