Wow Mandy for someone who claims they dont know what they are doing with a camera the macro detail on those is stunning

LOL Lee-Anne - it really IS a lucky dip!!!
My Not a DSLR Olympus really does amazing macro! and can zoom off far away - but the slightest movement... BIG BLUR! And I used to be soooo frustrated by it... even hate it (and even scrapped how much I hated it)......and would have chucked it in a river once or twice or ten million times!!! And so got my DSLR - and I cant get it to do macro well at all - and it doest reach as far away as my Olympus does.....but it can handle the movement...... so hence......... I USE TWO CAMERAS~~

Soooooo stupid really - but I had to get resourceful - and that wasnt cheap!

So I dont know if I have improved it or made it worse

Oh I had forgotten how much fun it was to play with photos

and then my brother - argh - he takes the coolest photos

Oh wow... your brother's photo is just amazing!! ooh!

I like the bigger pic of the bird on the beach cos you could see the sea... I like the space.

Lee-Ann. the crop on the Cassowary is perfect. You can still place it at the beach by what's in the background and now it also fills the frame. It is a bit grainy, I'm thinking that is because you had the ISO bumped up to freeze the bird in the shot. (If you camera is on Auto, this is done for you) The feathers have more detail now but as I suspected, its more obviously that it's slightly out of focus. And good to see you're playing around in the photo editing program. The more you fiddle, the more you'll learn and discover.

*TIP* I keep notes of what works when I play with textures, overlays and other digi goodies, and I keep them all in a display folder that goes everywhere in the laptop bag.

Lovely shot from your brother. That could be a postcard. I can imagine a red goldfish in the water in the foreground to give it a point of focus. The eye is drawn naturally to red.

Wow Lee-Ann what a beautiful photo your brother has taken....
I love beautiful photography but alas I am not good in front or behind a camera,

Mandy. A SLR (Single Lens Reflex) is a camera that you can change the lens on. Film or Digital is the same.


Your Olympus as a f stop of 2.8. Small number = small focus. Its also fast for low light situations. 4.6 to 92 mm is the length of the lens. My macro is also a f2.8 and its 100mm. So I'm not suprized that it does well with the tiny world of macro. To get real control of precise focussing in macro you'll need to tripod it. Just 1mm of movement and the shot is a waste as its out of focus. Your heartbeat is enough to do that. As for the 'far away' shots you'll need to move up to f8 or even f16 to get it all in focus. As there is less light coming into the camera, the shutter slows down. This is when your shot starts to blur due to camera shake. Either tripod it, or up the ISO to get the metering right in the camera. Upping the ISO however, leads to grain and noise in your shot.



Mandy. If your shots seem to have too much light then you are letting in too much light. And the metering would be on the right of the centre point. Slow the shutter down by using a higher f stop or lower your ISO.

thanks Tiff - I will pass on your Tip to Ray and see if he knows where to find a red goldfish to throw in the pond

Yep - a still shot of a cassowary is a very very hard thing to do - I think I actually had it on the sports action option so that would explain the graininess from the way you are explaining the issue

Oh I need some serious learning to make this thing worth having

Mandy. I forgot about your other camera.

The Sony has a great walk around lens that would suit most situations. f3.5 is nearly as close as your 2.8 on the Olympus. But not quite. That is the reason why your Olympus does better at macro. 18-70mm lens. This is the amount of zoom that you have with this lens.

RAW +J means you are shooting in both RAW file and JPG file. Do you process the raw file or the jpg file? Otherwise you are doubling up every shot. If you can, go with the RAW. Its a much larger file with a lot lot more info than the JPG and because of this your image will be of much better quality at the end. However, this would mean that you would need to process every shot so anyone else can view it. Process and save it as a JPG. Your computer cant read the RAW file, so you'll need to use Photoshop, Picassa or some other program that can read the RAW file so you can fiddle with it and save it as a JPG.

1/8 is the shutter speed. you will need to tripod at this speed to get a crisp shot. No doubt of it. If you hand holding the camera, then its way too slow. Basically try to the shutter number above the biggest mm number on your lens. 70mm lens = shutter speed of 1/80 or faster to prevent camera shake.

f3.5 is the amount of focus. This is when the aperture blades in the camera are wide open. (think of your eyelids that you are holding wide open)small number = small focus.

ISO 400. this is the amount of sensitivity the sensor has to light. Keep this number as low as possible to prevent the amount of noise and grain in the shot.

Lee-Ann.



and yes, the sports setting would do that. So glad to hear that it's all making a bit of sense. I need the feedback so I can make sure I'm talking in Layman terms. It is like another language, but once a person 'gets it' its wonderful. It all clicks.

A little flicker of light is coming on!!!(pardon the pun)
I dont think I hate this camera anymore!!! I think if I understood it better - its actually BETTER than my DSLR!!!

Okay... I just have to now get savvy with the terminology and remember what things mean. I have blocks when it comes to numbers... (emotional damage from maths at school way back when!!!!!) so I see numbers - and down come the shutters!(LOL more pun!!) So I fiddle until things work out!! (kinda like my maths now!! LOL)

Have copied and pasted this VERY important information and I'm going to have a go at getting this right.

I use this camera for my LO's - my DSLR doesnt do the job like this one does.

Thanks so so much! You've saved this camera from the river!!!

AH!!!!!! I wondered why I was getting these big ORANGE cartooned flowers in a frame next to every photo uploaded by the compter!!! AND it was taking up SOOO MUCH space on my computer that I was going in and deleting them!!!

I couldnt open these files and I had NO idea why they were there and why it didnt happen with my olympus!

Okay got to figure out how to get rid of it.

Where's the dreaded instruction book!!! hate them.... goes RIGHT over my head!

Just copying and pasting the rest of the info and printing it out.

I did an online course to get better at my cameras.... with Katrina Kennedy called 'Captured Through the Lens' (supposed to be a beginners course) cost $US50 and I couldnt complete it...

Got totally swallowed up by all the others that knew everthing and took off at galloping speed... and I was still left at the gates...

Never will do that again..

so you see I have this sorrowful past with cameras!

I think I'm slow!

Thanks so much Tiff. I think you taught me more in just these couple of posts!

wonderful to hear that I've 'saved a camera's mortal soul'

Actually you have 2 great cameras. Not one. Just need to get the hang of them. And yes learning the terminology is the key.

There are 1000's of tutorials out there. I do find the ones from Digital Photography School 'click' with me. Read them and go thru them at your own pace. But persist. Finish it and you'll be so very rewarded.

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/