My backyard

[geraldlieteau]

C&C please. I took this picture with my Nikon D70 in the middle of the summer and was pleased that it came out like this. Is the milkyness of this pic be considered high iso? Just wondering.

[Geoff F]

I can't find any shooting information for this photo.

However, you have a problem with bright light which is causing light patches in the background. But it looks as though there are other issues. Possibly some narrow streaks of reflected light which are only affecting part of the dragonfly. Or light, such as sunlight, filtering through onto your subject which is causing the exposure problem.

The sharp focus area is rather shallow so I suspect you had a fairly wide aperture which is reducing the depth of focus on what is a difficult and 'deep' subject, focus wise that is.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Gerald,

Welcome to the CiC forums from me, good to have another fellow Nikon shooter.

It is fairly tricky to assess image quality from a small picture with no EXIF data.
Are you able to use the TinyPic method to post one that is bigger?

HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?, see the second post in that thread.

Looking at the histogram, I suspect this is a camera jpg that hasn't had any Post processing done to it?
The contrast is quite flat because the black point is so high.

I have opened it in PS Elements and demonstrate the effect of setting the black point;



It is a bit over exposed, I think you have lost detail on the body, which hasn't helped.

Nice blurred background separating it and good composition though, well done.

Cheers,

[geraldlieteau]

[Dave Humphries]

Hi again Gerald,

Thanks for the bigger picture - I was hoping the EXIF data would be available to me, so I could see what shutter speed, aperture and iso was used, but it isn't available

What I can now see is that the focus seems to be on the tip of its nose, so everything behind that just gets progressively softer.

If the lens had focused on say, the wing leading edge - and an aperture of f/11 used - more would likely have been sharper.

As before; it is over exposed and I find that doesn't help with milkiness (or sharpness).
The lack of sharpness also contributes to the milky look, particularly with this image, where the only thing that is black is fine detail - which is not fully resolved.

I don't think you have a problem with the iso, although I don't know what it was.

Couple of other thoughts;
Did you use a lens hood?
Do you shoot RAW?

Cheers,