Beginner in photography

Dodcrx

Hi Everyone

as the title says im brand new to this.
i bought a fujifilm s1600 bridge camera the other day and i am looking for some tips on how to get better. here is some of my first pics. any feedback would be great. you can tell the truth if its not great, im a big boy !

im just using google picassa at the moment.
i dont want to rush into buying anything expensive yet till i know i enjoy it.

Corkbah

first pic... looks decent - but too much distraction (background) ...its also not sharp and the subject seems to be "in his/her own world" there is also a toy that the child is playing with which is not in the pic.

second pic....doesn't do anything ...its a silhouette of a tree with some yellow toning ?? dont understand the toning or the image in general.

third pic ... out of focus, possibly hand shook you have also cropped some of the head off - which in general is a big no-no.

fourth pic ... also out of focus, pic of half a dog with half purple toning .... I dont understand what you are trying to photo, are you trying to get a pic of the dog in profile ...then take the whole dog.

and they say never to work with children or animals .... one of the most important parts of photographing people/animals is proper interaction, try to capture a moment where the person/animal interacts/reacts with the camera, most people say focus on the eyes.

have a read online about:
rule of thirds,
composing an image
aperture, shutter speeds, ISO - and the link between all three.


keep taking photos and keep posting them asking for advice - some of the people here are incredibly helpful.

amdgilmore

As mentioned above, the photos are a bit out of focus.

One other thing I'd say is to just avoid Picasa presets completely (ie filters, effects, etc). When you're new to photography it's easy to fall into the trap of applying effects to every photo you take, but in general they only tend to detract from a picture. Plenty of people never get out of that habit, rely on post-processing to make their photos look moderately interesting, and end up neglecting basic photography skills.

For starters, just try to take photos that are interesting without using Picasa. As suggested, read up on photographic composition. There are loads of websites that cover the very basic stuff like the rule of thirds, triangles, golden ratios and so on.

Dodcrx

Thank a mill guys, ye have being a great and I look forward to working on those pointers