captive pigs

[daniel]

Hello, I've recently registered on this forum. I know next to nothing about digital photography...actually about photography, but I'd like to learn a few things. So, first images. Just some auto focus tests (I finally got around to reading the camera's manual about 1 year and a half after I bought it ). Comments are welcomed.

[taken]

well i think i better not comment on this pics......i am a non veg guy and pork is my favorite meat.

[daniel]

Well, since there is still time left until Christmas, I'd say it's safe to comment. BTW, the title has no relation to food preferences (I also like pork ) or to any movement for/against animals . It's just that I had to fill it in when I posted the message .

[shreds]

On the first shot, I would have gone in slightly closer, risking putting my lens right between the fencing. (although be ready for an inquisitive snout or negative reaction from the pigs parent).

Try zooming in on your computer to see the effect of the pigs face without external distractions (although one part of the fence remains there, albeit out of focus.) Some very clever cloning in the computer could remove this, but would be time consuming to get a great effect.

Don't be afraid to turn the camera vertical to get a different perspective as I think the first shot would have benefitted from including the pigs feet (trotters, sorry) in the shot.

Similarly I think that by standing back your camera has focused on the fencing, which I presume was not the intention. If your camera can manual focus this can get around this, or you need to make sure that the focus point for the camera is right on your subject. Happens to all cameras at some point or another, just be aware of the effect fences can have.

Keep the irrelevant detail away that distracts the eye. That way you will find you get much more pleasing shots.

[daniel]

Shreds, thank you for the reply and for the suggestions. These pictures are the results of some tests I did after finally reading the manual (not reading manuals for electronics is a bad habit I have and I think it's because I graduated a technical school ).
The problem with the pig was that he was constantly on the move so it was quite hard to fix him in one spot, but I'll take your suggestion next time and offer him the lens .
since I'm not a native english speaker feet will do just fine, I never heard of trotters .
I assume you refer to the third image when you talk about the focus. In that image I was playing with aperture and I intentionally focused on the fence, but the purpose was to also get the pigs into focus .... and I failed
... so if you have any tips on that I'd appreciate it.
About the manual focus part...I own a Fuji S5600 and, while it's a decent camera and I'm quite fond of it it has, in my opinion, two big drawbacks: the manual focus is almost impossible to use and the same goes for the EVF so I prefer using the display. As to the focus problem, usually the auto focus works well enough.

So, thanks again for the advice and I hope someday I'll be able to get things right