That’s strange. I get the same picture from my link and yours. 
It looks like it links through your account. In other words, you can see it because you’re signed in as you. Photobucket should tell you somewhere the URL you’re supposed to use to link on message boards. (It may be surrounded by [img] tags, but you can take that off.)
I had the same thing, and it was because I didn’t click on the image to shrink it down to where it fit on the screen. Anything else, and your screen is just dark.
Or, the image didn’t download all the way. Use CTRL-F5 to refresh the image, as that will clear it from your cache.
Yeah, don’t be afraid of using the Av (Aperture priority) mode. The comments made by Finagle are right. 400 ISO, 1/500 second, f7.2 is more suited to outdoor photos on an overcast day.
However, shooting manual will help you learn your camera. Now, what you could have done, instead of adding light, is one of the three following things:
- Increase the shutter speed. You were at 1/500 second, which is good for stopping moderate motion. The rule of thumb is most people can hand-hold an image at 1/focal length of the lens. So, at 75 mm, most average people can handhold it comfortably at 1/75 or slower. At 300mm, you’d use 1/300 second. Now, you are using a camera with a smaller sensor, so 75mm acts more like 120mm and 300mm acts more like 480mm. So, if you just know that with that lens if you stay at 1/125 of a second on the short end (75mm) and 1/500 second on the long end (300mm), you should be able to hand-hold your image. With practice you can handhold for even slower shutter speeds, but this is a good rule of thumb.
However, also note that this is to avoid motion blur due to your hands/body not keeping still. This has nothing to do with subject movement. However, for moderate movement like walking, 1/125 of a second will be fine to freeze movement. For full-on running, you’ll need more like 1/500 second and faster. A bird’s flapping wings? At least 1/500, probably more like 1/1000. But that’s only if you want to freeze motion. Artistically applied motion blur can often look better than a frozen picture, because it suggests motion, something a freeze frame often doesn’t.
- Aperture. This is how big the hole is letting the light into your camera. Bigger hole means more light. The lower your f/stop number, the bigger the hole. So, f/2.8 means big hole, lots of light. f/22 means, small hole, little night. You were at f/7.2, so you had plenty of room to “open up.” You had f/6.3, f/5.6, f/5, f/4.5. You could have started trying out these other apertures to see how your picture changed. You would have noticed it getting brighter and brighter as you approached f/4.5.
So what’s the trade-off? You don’t just get light for free. We saw altering our shutter speed affects the influence of motion in our picture. What does changing the aperture do? It changes the depth of field. Depth of field, to put it simply, is how much in front and behind of your focal point is in focus. To illustrate. Let’s pretend I’m taking a picture of a person. My focus is set on the eyes, and I’m framing the image as a typical head-and-shoulders portrait. If I use a wide aperture, like f/2.0, the eyes will be in perfect focus, but you’ll see the tip of the nose starting to go out of focus, and definitely the back of the ear. Here’s the first photo I pulled up from google illustrating the effect. If I shoot at a higher f/stop, like say f/8 -f/11, everything in my portrait will be in sharp focus.
Now, don’t be mistaken in thinking “everything in sharp focus is better.” It’s actually usually quite the opposite, especially for portraits. Low-depth of field helps eliminate distracting elements from your frame and isolate your subject from the background. You’ll have to experiment to see how it works for you. Personally, I tend to shoot very wide open, rarely going beyond f/5.6 except for landscapes. My default is f/2.8 for most things.
- Bump up your ISO. ISO is your sensitivity. The higher the number, the more sensitive the film (or, in this case, sensor) to light. The lower the number the less sensitive. The trade-off (remember, there’s always a trade-off) is that the higher the ISO, the more grain/noise in your photo. The rule of thumb is, unless you want to emphasize grain/noise, shoot at the lowest ISO conditions allow. The D10 file is acceptable to about 800 ISO. I wouldn’t really bump up the ISO any higher than that, unless I absolutely had to. So, your third option was to raise the ISO to 800, but I think you were fine staying in the 400 range.
So, to recap. Experiment! Why were you thinking of adding light when you had all those knobs to twirl and change? Change your shutter speed! Change your ISO! Look at the LCD preview on the back of the camera and see what happens. It’s digital. You’re not wasting any money by taking too many exposures, and you have instantaneous feedback, so play around with the settings and take note of what happens. Go out, have fun, and don’t be afraid to play around with your settings.
That was a great post, pulykamell, thanks for that.
BigT’s control F5 solution did the trick, very nice looking pic
Declan
Thanks, I am actually going to print that out and add it to my camera bag.
Declan
Great. I’m glad it was useful to you and interface2x. But do appreciate what a great tool for learning photography you have with these digital cameras these days. You can try out as many settings and make as many mistakes as you want and it doesn’t cost you anything. You even have a digital “Polaroid back” (your LCD) that gives you an idea of your exposure and lighting levels. (I do realize the 10D’s screen is pretty small and relatively useless for things like checking critical focus, but for lighting and exposure information, it works great.)
So do play around. Photography is definitely one of those things you learn through making a lot of mistakes. Take a portrait at f/4.5, then take another one at f/11. (You’ll want to do this outside so you have enough light). Look at the backgrounds and see how they are different in those photos. The effects aren’t going to be quite as obvious as with a f/2.8 lens, but you’ll see the difference, and that should get you understanding what depth of field is about.
Another exercise: take a head and shoulders portrait (so, fill the frame) at 75mm, and then take another one at 300mm with near-identical framing (in other words, you’re going to have to step way back.) Note how focal length has effects on the picture other than simply moving objects closer to you. Note the relationship of the foreground and background. Note the shape of the faces. Once again, at that range that you have, the effect will be a bit more subtle. If you ever get your hands on something wider, like 24mm or 35mm, do this exercise with those lenses. Take pictures, all framed with the face the same size in the frame and taking up about 2/3 of it, at 24mm, at 35mm, at 50mm, at 70mm, at 135mm, at 200mm, etc.