Your photo, critiqued and/or praised. It's about learning and improving.

Yeah I agree that it is cropped a little too tight. I would try to show all of the front leg (including paw) and the collar.
 
27BD22B8-FE02-45DB-A96F-4EBCFEA4BBB4.jpeg I went to Oban, Argyle today to try to get a photo of a seagul in flight. Oh how frustrating! This is the best I could get.
I also took this one of a more relaxed one.
53CD6DBB-0E17-4B4B-A127-DDD655FFE374.jpeg
Here is a nice boat.
801A4AE5-5CEE-46D8-8999-C5E7C7BBD3D9.jpeg
 
I think I need to watch some you tube videos on the subject. I realised that I was using single point of focus which makes it harder to keep it on the bird as it flies. I couldn’t work out how to get more focus points on the viewfinder. I will plan it better the next time I go to take similar pics. I was going to take my 70-300mm Tamron lens but took my 55-200mm Nikon instead as it’s more compact.
 
I think I need to watch some you tube videos on the subject. I realised that I was using single point of focus which makes it harder to keep it on the bird as it flies. I couldn’t work out how to get more focus points on the viewfinder. I will plan it better the next time I go to take similar pics. I was going to take my 70-300mm Tamron lens but took my 55-200mm Nikon instead as it’s more compact.

I would take the longest lens you have. Unless it has really slow and/or bad AF.
 
I have the Nikon 55-200 (first version with VR) and the Tamron 70-300 VC. I don't really shoot birds but the Tamron has much quicker AF performance in my experience.

Sometimes it might work better to shoot around 200 or 250 even on a 300mm-capable lens as the autofocus might be a hair quicker and it might be able to track flight better, but I'd use the Tamron everytime when shooting birds or really any time the extra length and weight won't be too cumbersome.
 
Pelicans...
Though not in flight, I captured this one back in 2010 trying to take a nap on a pier. Shot with my K20D and a Soligor 85-300 MF lens.
1_Pelican2_PEG.jpg
 
I've always failed at shooting birds. Unless it was something relatively stationary.

I was going to post a time exposure I took downtown in Madison last year, but I found a much nicer scene to look at. I'm actually surprised I managed to post-process something this well. I took this shot at a random location in one of the darker areas I managed to find where I live. When I first got my camera I was out doing lots of time exposures pointed at the sky to see what I could come up with via stacking, etc.

This is all a single shot, nothing fancy. with some post processing. I believe the clouds were a storm front moving in that night. Also idk what this will look like, but it looks good on my end. I have a monitor profile done with DisplayCAL and some hardware thingy I picked up a while back. But my "correct" images have shown dark on test prints (ritzpix), and also it seems some web browsers choose whether or not they want to properly use color management.

Again there is nothing spectacular here I just think it's a nice scene to look at.
Shot on a Nikon D3400, ISO 3200, 18mm, f/4, exposed for 30 seconds using 18 - 55 VR kit lens
Taken at 11:00PM CST

0018-Full-2.jpg
 
I've always failed at shooting birds. Unless it was something relatively stationary.

I was going to post a time exposure I took downtown in Madison last year, but I found a much nicer scene to look at. I'm actually surprised I managed to post-process something this well. I took this shot at a random location in one of the darker areas I managed to find where I live. When I first got my camera I was out doing lots of time exposures pointed at the sky to see what I could come up with via stacking, etc.

This is all a single shot, nothing fancy. with some post processing. I believe the clouds were a storm front moving in that night. Also idk what this will look like, but it looks good on my end. I have a monitor profile done with DisplayCAL and some hardware thingy I picked up a while back. But my "correct" images have shown dark on test prints (ritzpix), and also it seems some web browsers choose whether or not they want to properly use color management.

Again there is nothing spectacular here I just think it's a nice scene to look at.
Shot on a Nikon D3400, ISO 3200, 18mm, f/4, exposed for 30 seconds using 18 - 55 VR kit lens
Taken at 11:00PM CST

View attachment 1209767

Looks good to me. I need to try some of these after dusk shots.
 
Also idk what this will look like, but it looks good on my end. I have a monitor profile done with DisplayCAL and some hardware thingy I picked up a while back. But my "correct" images have shown dark on test prints (ritzpix), and also it seems some web browsers choose whether or not they want to properly use color management.

View attachment 1209767
Looks good here.
Prints can look darker or lighter than the monitor version depending on the lighting conditions around your monitor and the lighting of the print.

Generally my prints look a bit darker in ordinary room light and lighter when viewed in the camera club's light box for competition.
Regarding color management of web browsers, your best bet is to make sure you are converting to sRGB when you output to jpg. The non-managed web browsers will default to this.
If someone uses a wide gamut monitor with a non-color-managed program, then that's their problem. Nothing you can do about that. If they went to the trouble and expense to get a wide-gamut monitor, they should know better.
 
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Looks good here.
Prints can look darker or lighter than the monitor version depending on the lighting conditions around your monitor and the lighting of the print.

Generally my prints look a bit darker in ordinary room light and lighter when viewed in the camera club's light box for competition.
Regarding color management of web browsers, your best bet is to make sure you are converting to sRGB when you output to jpg. The non-managed web browsers will default to this.
If someone uses a wide gamut monitor with a non-color-managed program, then that's their problem. Nothing you can do about that. If they went to the trouble and expense to get a wide-gamut monitor, they should know better.

Yeah color management is too much of a hassle to really wrap my brain around. I understand monitor brightness itself also plays a role in how dark/light something is gonna look in print (as opposed to just managing the color stuff). As far as web browsers, it seems a lot are just buggy and don't repsect color profile management, at least when it comes to Chrome/Chromium based browsers.

Firefox seems to work fine out of the box, but in Vivaldi or Chrome you have to hunt down backend flags to force color profile management into sRGB mode.
 
We didn't have anything cool like clouds going on but I felt like going outside and snapping a picture or two.. First one is the original, the other is slightly tweaked. Both have been downsized somewhat

PZQK9p7.jpg


PdiHXrt.jpg


Nikon D3400
ISO 100, 300mm, f/10, 1/320sec handheld w/vibration reduction turned on.
 
We didn't have anything cool like clouds going on but I felt like going outside and snapping a picture or two.. First one is the original, the other is slightly tweaked. Both have been downsized somewhat

PZQK9p7.jpg



Nikon D3400
ISO 100, 300mm, f/10, 1/320sec handheld w/vibration reduction turned on.

Now that is something more in line with what I was shooting (no pun intended) for. I know my camera is only what would be called a bridge camera but same adjustments can be made. I guess I'd have to find a way to dial down the brightness?
 
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Now that is something more in line with what I was shooting (no pun intended) for. I know my camera is only what would be called a bridge camera but same adjustments can be made. I guess I'd have to find a way to dial down the brightness?

Correct. If you want to see detail on the moon, you need an exposure suitable for daylight, because the moon is lit by sunlight. Your camera's meter gets fooled by all the dark sky in the picture.
There are a few ways to fix this.
1) If your camera has an exposure +/- adjustment, turn it towards minus.
2) If your camera has a spot metering setting, use it to measure the moon
3) Use manual settings for sunlight: 1/400 second, ISO 100, f/8 (this is derived from the "sunny 16" rule: shutter speed = 1/ ISO rating and aperture = f/16 for sunlit subjects - but adjusted to use a faster shutter speed and bigger aperture with a telephoto zoom). Note that the moon is a rather dark gray surface, so you could probably increase the exposure a bit to f/5.6.
 
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Now that is something more in line with what I was shooting (no pun intended) for. I know my camera is only what would be called a bridge camera but same adjustments can be made. I guess I'd have to find a way to dial down the brightness?

So, I looked up the manual for your camera and to be perfectly honest it gave me ADD trying to read about all the automatic mode settings and what actually CAN be tweaked.

In short, if you can adjust your ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture. You should be able to manually get yourself a very good moon shot. It doesn't look like this camera has a completely manual mode though. Photographing stellar objects at night with any camera can be a tricky affair, and often requires a lot of experimentation.

edit: TV nuts point about exposure compensation is also a good one. Personally I don't like messing with that particular setting but that's just me - it might also work out well on your camera

If you think you want to really get into photography at some point, consider a Nikon or Canon DSLR. Even if you don't use their completely manual modes, you can still get far superior pictures that will last a lifetime, and slap the hell out of any phone camera, etc that seems to be all the craze these days. Buying from a reputable used shop is always an option too.
 
Something to try with your camera:

Set mode to P (page 15)
Set ISO to 100 (page 28)
Set meter to spot (page 32)
Adjust exposure compensation if necessary (p.27)

This may or may not work, since there is no manual mode - when you control all the above, your camera will still be deciding the shutter speed and may get it wrong. You just have to try it.

Another thought: you could try the "sunset" mode and see what your camera does.
 
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