My Momoko

dolldivatude wrote:Great pics Mikan. I love all the scenery. Silver Crescent is such a pretty doll.

You guys take such great shots of your dolls. I felt so awkward the other day when I went to a mall near my neighborhood. My pics didn't come out well at all.

I have been learning SO slowly how to take good pics, and I'm definitely still having learning and making mistakes. Other people seem to take better shots than I do, too!

Here are my own notes for photography, based on a rather automatic digital camera:

To get BOTH doll (held in one's hand) and background in focus is hard - and I think you ideally need a lot of good strong light (because strong light increases your "depth of focus"). Even with these photos I posted here, you'll see that one or the other is somewhat blurry. Only if I put the doll down and back up can I hope to get SOME kind of sense of focus of foreground doll and background scenery - but then she's not filling much of the screen. The shot with 280 in the background I took about 4 shots with different camera settings, AND had the doll set down further away than I could hold her, AND had a reasonable quantity of light... only one came out with both doll and highway in reasonable focus. ARGH! I think I may need Photoshop after all! Or just post a variety - some with doll in focus, some with background, some with no doll and background only!

For these shots I used a manual macro setting to get close-ups of the doll, then set it to automatic focus, as well as try manual "far" settings, to get contrasting shots of far-away stuff in focus. I'm not sure exactly which ones worked right - it probably depends on the light. At least I get a variety of shots I can examine later in detail, and hopefully one out of the lot will be OK. But the manually set macro IS definitely necessary for close-ups.

In a darker environment you'll probably need a very steady hand unless you are using a flash, because the shutter has to stay open longer to get enough light to form the picture. Even then, some digital cameras like mine handle low light rather poorly, making everything look very grainy (worse than 35mm cameras using low-light film, IMHO!).

For flash photos I've found I do need the 2 sheets of white paper to tone down the flash - and maybe some light reflectors someday.

Hmmm, maybe we should start a photography tips thread in the How-To section!

Mikan wrote:Hmmm, maybe we should start a photography tips thread in the How-To section!

Please!!

ETA: and make it a sticky!!

nataluna wrote:

Mikan wrote:Hmmm, maybe we should start a photography tips thread in the How-To section!

Please!!

ETA: and make it a sticky!!

OK I started one ... I have NO idea if it's helpful or not.
If others add stuff to it I'll stickify it (but if it turns out to be unhelpful ... lol...).

Those are some good tips, Mikan. I appreciate the time you took to give them. I have to figure a way to keep the paper over my flash. I have a fuji finepix s700, and my flash pops up. It is kinda awkward and the paper won't stay. I also have a sony cybershot that I could probably tape the paper over the flash.

I went to a local flea market near my house today. The shots are not great at all, but I'll share anyway.

dolldivatude wrote:Those are some good tips, Mikan. I appreciate the time you took to give them. I have to figure a way to keep the paper over my flash. I have a fuji finepix s700, and my flash pops up. It is kinda awkward and the paper won't stay.

I am lazy and grab whatever paper is nearby, then just awkwardly hold the paper over the flash, being careful not to actually block it with my fingers. Sometimes I use Kleenex. Sometimes I have to take a couple different shots til I have the right thickness. It doesn't have to be completely flat against the flash, though I'm sure that's ideal.

Thanks for posting the market shots!! They are so much fun!!

i folded the paper (and tore it to make it fit close against the place where the zoom comes out).

thanks so much for this so simple idea, but one that i would not have thought of or remembered by myself... my night photos are decent now!

I really love the scenery!

I love the fifth pic!! the scenery is quite impressive in your neck of the woods. Gloria in the car is awesome!

The fog has really been magnificent lately. I don't have any Momoko photos but I thought I would share some. It looks a lot like a giant, frothy ocean in the sky sometimes.

These photos were taken over different days with different cameras.









What it looks like UNDER the fog.

Those white clouds almost look like the snow on top of the mountains from the distance. And the fog is so heavy that you can only see the sun from the reflection over the ocean. Great photos!!

teddybear4me2 wrote:Those white clouds almost look like the snow on top of the mountains from the distance. And the fog is so heavy that you can only see the sun from the reflection over the ocean. Great photos!!

Thanks!

Yes, the fog sometimes looks like distant mountains, but when it rolls over the hills and into the valley, it looks like a HUGE frothy wave, just gigantic.
The most astounding fog wave I saw, I didn't get a photo of, but these sort of can give you an idea. You can also see it kind of rolling down the slopes - it's slow, but discernible. Sometimes you can also see it creeping among the trees, like a slow invasion of cotton candy.

It's just you have to realize that the fog stretches across the view across the horizon, not just this tiny picture width.

I think fog is rather scary. I've probably watched too many SF movies