Was playing around with the new 450D late yesterday arvo, this is one of the better shots i took. Still struggling with getting the settings right for low light conditions. What do you think?

Nice - not too much wrong there.

Good framing and nice composition.

Being "picky" I'd address the blown highlights and try to remove that light coloured stick from the rear grass to give a more even background.

Another point is focus - the nose is sharp but the eyes are soft. Maybe a bump in aperture to cure this.

The colours are good - the warmth of the setting sun comes over very well.

I think a little bit of P+P work could sort out the highlights and open up the dark shadows a tadge.

I suspect you may have set a rather low ISO which will enhance the image contrast and cause the above issues.

Try something around 200-400 iso to even this out. This may also sort out your low light problem.

Nice - not too much wrong there.

Good framing and nice composition.

Being "picky" I'd address the blown highlights and try to remove that light coloured stick from the rear grass to give a more even background.

Another point is focus - the nose is sharp but the eyes are soft. Maybe a bump in aperture to cure this.

The colours are good - the warmth of the setting sun comes over very well.

I think a little bit of P+P work could sort out the highlights and open up the dark shadows a tadge.

I suspect you may have set a rather low ISO which will enhance the image contrast and cause the above issues.

Try something around 200-400 iso to even this out. This may also sort out your low light problem.

Thanks for the feedback and CC.

Yes I was using 100 ISO, didn't think to up it, will try that next time.

Can't recall exact aperture but no doubt it was lower than it should have been.

Well I'm learning a lot, thanks

Can't recall exact aperture but no doubt it was lower than it should have been.

That is the point I was trying to make.

The aperture setting needs to be appropriate to the focal length and subject matter.

Using (say) a 24mm lens with the subject 2 feet in front of you will give a DOF of 6" to infinity at f8.

The same settings with a 200mm lens will ONLY give a DOF of some 2-3" !

These aren't the EXACT maths but I hope you see the point.

Use the stop down preview to see what is in focus and adjust the aperture accordingly.

Hope this helps

Can't recall exact aperture but no doubt it was lower than it should have been.

That is the point I was trying to make.

The aperture setting needs to be appropriate to the focal length and subject matter.

Using (say) a 24mm lens with the subject 2 feet in front of you will give a DOF of 6" to infinity at f8.

The same settings with a 200mm lens will ONLY give a DOF of some 2-3" !

These aren't the EXACT maths but I hope you see the point.

Use the stop down preview to see what is in focus and adjust the aperture accordingly.

Hope this helps

Yes that does help, understand better now thanks.

When you say "stop down preview", is that the depth of view preview button? If so I haven't used that yet (haven't read that part of the user manual either )

As you can see it may take me a while to pick this all up, thanks again for the explanations, its a big help!

Yes that does help, understand better now thanks.

When you say "stop down preview", is that the depth of view preview button? If so I haven't used that yet (haven't read that part of the user manual either )

As you can see it may take me a while to pick this all up, thanks again for the explanations, its a big help!

Yep, that's the one (about time I came into the 21st century I think!)

Anyway, when you press the little button, you'll clearly see what is and isn't in focus. When I have the time to take a shot I ALWAYS check DOF via this method.

Obviously, if you're shooting action/sport etc you wont have time but take a few trial shots of varying subject "distances/lens/aperture" configurations and you'll soon see the effect.