Fill The Frame and Urban Wildlife Assignments.... My 1st Efforts!

I hadn't been out with my S5700 for a while, so I took the opportunity to grab my camera and try and find some shots for the Fill The Frame Technique Challenge (on this sites forum), and the Urban Wildlife Assignment (on the S5700 Forum).

Meet Gary Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Super Macro, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/8th, ISO 800, Focal Length 6mm, Hand-held

If you don't do photo assignments from forums, websites, etc, do me a favour and have a go. They'll give you an excuse just to go out and shoot, preferably some subject, style or technique you haven't tried before.

Photo assignments / challenges also give you practice with pre-visualisation. Often you'll see a challenge, then immediately have an idea for a photo pop into your head, which you can then try and create and capture, rather than randomly taking pictures on a photowalk.

This shot was a little tricky - I saw the snail on the side of our house, near some Ivy, but it was quite dark, so most of my attempts came out blurred. I ramped up my cameras ISO to 800, and braced myself against the wall to steady the cam.


The next two are from our "fill the frame" technique challenge, the idea being to practice getting closer to our subjects, as this can improve our photography, and a bad habit lots of beginners(including me) have is that they're just too far away.

Canopy Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Macro, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/45th, ISO 100, Focal Length 6mm, Hand-held

After the rain had stopped, I liked the look of the water glistening on the leaves on this Lilly, plus the colours looked nice and vibrant (though of course amplified in Elements!).

Just A Feather Touch Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Macro, Aperture Priority, F6.3, 1/85th, ISO 200, Focal Length 11mm, Hand-held

I took this shot all wrong. I stood close to the mine, then had to go to macro mode to get it in focus (then the ship went out of focus). What I wanted was everything sharp, so I should have moved a distance away, set up my tripod, then zoomed into the same crop. This would have allowed me to use a narrow aperture, without risk of blur, so everything would have been sharp.

In the event, I went for a Sepia look, and darkened and blurred the corners.

(I used my Cokin A Grad at an angle to stop the sky and ship blowing out).


Thanks, Rob.