Beautiful shots! What kind of camera did you get?

Donna

my husband gave me a combo birthday mothers's day present. It's a Nikon D80. I will NEVER be able to use it to its full capabilities because it is smarter than I am!! I may have to take a course one of these days. I ll add it to the list of things I mean to do.

A

Nice pictures Anita. I think Harold has a D80 also.

If it were me, I would lighten them just a tad, especially the first one where her face is heavily shadowed.

Like so, if you will excuse my messing with your image. You can do this very quickly with most editing programs.

Dave

Hi Dave, ya but don't you think it washes out her body a bit? Do you know how to use the backlight feature? I find the manual to be pretty useless. :)

Hi Anita, and congratulations on your new camera!

I've read the DPreview of the D80 and it got a "Highly Recommended" rating. Nice camera for sure. Did you get any long or zoom lenses with it?

I think these photos look quite good... Sharp focus, with probably better detail than we can see at the size you've posted them here. But you're right, the backlighting from the sky is rather distracting, and while the bird is pretty well exposed where the light falls on her, there are some hard shadows too. I agree with Dave that this detracts especially from that first shot (which is the best pose imo).

As to what to do about it? Well I sure don't know what settings on the D80 might have made these better captures. Lacking a fill flash, I would resort to post-processing too.
I'm sure this could be significantly better if I had the original image file:
{{!gwi}}

Best advice might be: Have a lot of fun, and try to gradually learn about your excellent camera's features by taking LOTS of pictures. You may be as smart as it is one day soon.

keep shooting,

Kenn :)