There's a lot of reasons for that. One is the type and settings of the monitor an image is viewed and edited on. For instance, I did the quick edit of the images above on my laptop. Looked fine to me last night, but now that I see them on my desktop, old CRT monitor, they look way over saturated. Another common problem is the auto setting on most cameras favor red. This tends to give a reddish tint to some colors, especially greens, making them appear washed out. All I did to Elfiet's photos was reduce the amount of red by 25% and gang up the contrast, (a bit too far). Here's the same photo done up on my desktop. Borrowed the sky from her other shot.
When I say 'point and shoot' I just mean preset consumer cameras with little or no manual adjustment possible. Nothing wrong with those really. Handled correctly, they can produce excellent results. By contrast an expensive professional camera is going to be more frustrating than useful in the hands of a novice. To be honest, half the time I just hit the auto button myself. Most of my work is done in a studio setting though, where I have complete control over direction and intensity of light.
Speaking of point and shoot, here's one for you Aussie. A cow taking 5 on the path to our place in Fiji. Shot with an HP 1 megapix! One of the very first consumer digitals. Paid $20 for it on eBay.
Actually I get this question all the time. Photographing animals is always a challenge. With cats it's about 5% technique and 95% luck. I've been trying to get a good picture of one of our mousers for years! Best I can tell you is, get the cats use to seeing the camera. Walk around with it dangling from you neck for a few days. Once they're use to it being there, engage them in their favorite activity and snap away. Make sure the area is well lit and avoid using a flash. Key here is to be patient and ready to seize opportunity.
This's exactly what I was talking about in #10. You don't necessarily need high megapixels to achieve excellent results. Those early HP's were real dogs by today's standards. They were heavy, awkward to handle and the dim LCD screen was a joke, but they did come with a quality optical censor and an honest to goodness glass lens. I wouldn't take one on a commercial shoot or anything, but a simple camera like that in the right hands can rival the best best of them. Nice pic mate!
Sounds like a good plan.
That's easy. Just sit them in a chair one by one and tell them to smile!
That can work. Make sure the welding lens is a #14 though. Easy way to tell if it's not marked; if you can see the horizon through it- it ain't. What type of cam are you using?I am trying to figure out how to photograph our impending complete solar eclipse (in my specific area of N. America) and trying to do so without blinding myself! Wish I had your knowledge, artistic ability and expensive equipment. I have designed quite a 'jury rig' incorporating welding lens and white boxes. We shall see.
Not sure what you're asking. Cropping is just trimming an image to either clean up the edges or to bring the intended focal point more on center. Use to be done manually while developing. Now though, it's all digital. Or are you asking about depth of field? That is, some areas of your photo being in focus while others are not. That's a common complaint with point and shoots.
Yeah, framing your shots correctly is critical. Cropping in post will help, as was done in #6, but there's just so much cropping can do.