Rossisle beech looking for pointers.pic heavy.

[Retired Member southey]

Had another day at the beech, took some pics, but i'm looking for pointers, i'm trying to get the whole composition thing, i'm using a fuji finepix s8100fd set to 10mp fine, and the auto mode with image stabalisation, no tripod, using the thirds lines on the view finder to section up the screen. am i putting to much in the pic, is there any nifty trick to stop the sun flare if taking a pic with it in.

Any and every critisisisum great fully received.

Southey.

 

[DaveBromley]

i love the one second from bottom!!!! cheeky i know but any chance you can send it to me for a desktop backround

Dave

 

[Retired Member southey]

Hi Dave, Sorry chap but i'd like to keep the original for myself, Glad you liked it though.

 

[hiho]

i really like the balanced stones one

 

[TomBartlett]

There's little that can be done to prevent lens flare when shooting into the sun. Don't use any filters over the lens and try shooting at a smaller aperture (big f number). Some expensive lenses have fancy coatings to cut down on it. The trees and shoreline shot has a bit of flare creeping in from the left that can be prevented with a lens hood or just by shading the lens from the sun with whatever's available. With all your shots taken into the sun, a large area of the sky is burnt out (pure white). If you can, try underexposing. If you're digitally minded, you could try your hand at creating a HDR image (merge together three shots of the same scene, 1 overexposed, 1 underexposed and 1 correctly exposed).
Talking composition, the shots with the steps in them all have them leading to the left, it would help if there was more to the left of them than to the right as the steps pull the eye in that direction. At the moment the steps pull the eye out of the image. The same can be done with the silhouette of the dog. If you have an image of something looking in a particular direction it can help to have it looking 'into' the image rather than 'out' of it, as tend to try to follow the gaze.
The 'rules' of photography are meant to be broken, but learning them certainly helps. (I know I'm still learning).

 

[Retired Member southey]

Cheers tom thank you, ref steps pic, when you say more to the left of them, do you mean me rotating round them, or putting them on the right hand side of the pic, you mean put them on the right don't you. that makes sense, also with the sillouette, would you recomend takeing it in lanscape rather than profile of just moving back so as to get a bit more back ground.

 

[brancho]

The stones looks nice in B&W IMO but shooting in B&W on the camera will probably lield poor results.

 

[Retired Member southey]

That is pretty good, i think i'll have a play.

 

[brancho]

That is pretty good, i think i'll have a play.

Do you know how to use layers and selections in photoshop?

 

[Retired Member southey]

I dont have photoshop, the only prog i have access to is the photobucket editing tools.

 

[Kerne]

The stones one is the outstanding image from these. And as Brancho pointed out, the black and white approach is the way to go. I think some of the images lack contrast and seem to err on the side of overexposure - this may be a problem with the cameras default settings so try using manual if you can and bracketing exposures (pixels are free!). As for composition, keep working at it. Interest in foreground, mid ground and background and the rule of thirds are good starting points.

 

[Retired Member southey]

Thank you Kern, when you say bracketing do you mean three shots with graduating exposure?

 

[Highbinder]

Just had to say it's good to see someone else out stacking stones Everyone thinks I'm mad for doing it but I love balancing stones!

Heres a recent pic of mine

 

[Retired Member southey]

Now thats a good ballance, did you happen to catch countrywise the other week, there a guy doing some extreme balancing with huge rocks, i'm going to give it a go when i get down to my secret beach again,theres some beuties just begging to balance. the ones pictured where down to my SisterIL's bloke though so credit where it's due. he also made a man too.

he was a grumpy stone man though.

 

[brancho]

I dont know what is like but THIS free software is supposed to be good.

Worth a try as its free.

 

[TomBartlett]

Yeah, I meant to move the steps more to right. Glad you could see what I was trying to say!

 

[brancho]

southey remember that when you are shooting into teh sun or when shooring in conditions with bright sun and big shadows the cameras metering will always struggle and taking extra shots with a bit of exposure compensation will help you get the shot you want but not always. Sometimes the camera will make bad choices of what to do with an image (especially when using JPEGS) and it wont look like you want. My advice is to take more shots than you think you need as they can be deleted.

If the exposure looks too dark go to + side and if teh shot looks too light go to the minus side.

Software like photoshop will help a lot if you can be bothered with the time and money but you need to know how to use it.

 

[Retired Member southey]

Good words, Yeah i get what you mean about botherd to learn how to use it, that gimp soft ware looks the biz, but to be honest i wouldn't know where to start with out being shown. I'll take on bord your advice about using the settings rather than the auto mode, it seems to be very easy to adjust, I got the MIL comming to stay in a week or so, so i can spend a day at the beach to have a play.cheers chaps.

 

[Kerne]

Thank you Kern, when you say bracketing do you mean three shots with graduating exposure?

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Try bracketing just 1 or 1.5 stops each side of the given exposure.