# Still messing with black on black



## OKLAHOMAN (Jul 9, 2010)

Wanted to see the effect of two pens at different depths. Shot this with my cannon 300D. Mostly concerned with the crispness and depth of field.


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## toddlajoie (Jul 9, 2010)

Depth of field looks fine, the tail end of the top pen is a bit outside of it, but everything else is sharp. Hard to know where your optimum focus was, but it is possible that you were a bit too far forward, and would have had enough DOF for everything if you focused back a bit (I say hard to tell, because everything in the foreground is sharp, and you can't tell how far in front of the front-most point would still be sharp if there was something there....)

Rule of thumb for Depth of field is 1/3 in front, 2/3 behind, so looking at your setup, I probably would have focused on the part of the stand near the center of the top pen. Looks like that is about 1/3 of the way behind the front-most spot, but that is being hyper-critical. IMO there is nothing bad about that section not being sharp, it helps keep the attention on the cool material and nice finish.

What is your ISO set to? I'm not all that up on the 300D model (Nikon guy..), but the shot looks a little noisy in the dark areas, which is usually a sign of a high ISO or an inexpensive automatic camera. I'm guessing your camera is not the later, based on Canon's usual naming. If the camera is relatively new (<3 years) I would expect to see that kind of noise in shots taken at ISOs of 800 and above, or shots that were underexposed and adjusted after the fact. If you're using a tripod and can handle the longer exposure times, I would keep your ISO below 400 whenever possible especially when shooting primarily dark subjects (shadows are where the noise shows first..) {again, this is super-nit-picky, as in "if I had to find SOMETHING wrong." The shots are just as excellent as the pen and workmanship is...}


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## DaveConrad (Jul 13, 2010)

Gorgeous pens. Well done.


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