How could this be better

[brancho]

I have realised we do not have a thread dedicated to helping people work out what id wrong with thier shots.
So here goes post a picture in this thread and people will tell you where you went wrong and what to do avoid it in future.
Or they can explain how to save it.
It helps if you explain what you trying to acheive and what you did for some shots.

I was hoping to post one mine but I am at work and things are not working for me.

 

[Harvestman]

Excellent idea. I will certainly be posting a few of mine in here.

 

[Harvestman]

Go on then. I quite like this one, but I'm sure it could be improved. I just wanted to show the colours of the rocks and water. The light was terrible. I used an auto setting on the camera, and the picture was taken hand-held without a tripod.

 

[Maxwellol]

Go on then. I quite like this one, but I'm sure it could be improved. I just wanted to show the colours of the rocks and water. The light was terrible. I used an auto setting on the camera, and the picture was taken hand-held without a tripod.

I'm no connoisseur of fine art or anything, but for me the problem is those two rocks in the top-left corner. Looks like they're facing each other, drawing my eye up to the gap between them (or the pillar of water behind them) so I find it hard to pay much attention to the rest of that nice scene.

Others will have different views, I'm sure.

 

[greensurfingbear]

Go on then. I quite like this one, but I'm sure it could be improved. I just wanted to show the colours of the rocks and water. The light was terrible. I used an auto setting on the camera, and the picture was taken hand-held without a tripod.

Use a tripod and an ND filter.


Next.

Lol, sorry just being flippant


Orric

 

[Harvestman]

I'm no connoisseur of fine art or anything, but for me the problem is those two rocks in the top-left corner. Looks like they're facing each other, drawing my eye up to the gap between them (or the pillar of water behind them) so I find it hard to pay much attention to the rest of that nice scene.

Others will have different views, I'm sure.

Now that you have pointed it out, the top of the shot is a lot busier than the foreground. I hadn't noticed, but you are right.

I've a bad habit when taking handheld of snapping the first shot I see, and then moving on to take something else, rather than taking a bit of time finding the right shot.

 

[philaw]

Just some ideas from a hobbyist photographer...
1) Like someone else said, I would think about foreground and background. You can think about where and how much you want to be in focus- ask about that if you're new to it. If you get lower you might get a bit of sky or some interesting background in at the top.
2) For me it would help to make a longer exposure to separate the water and rocks, or a faster one and freeze it all. It's kinda straddling between the two.

 

[brancho]

Here is a shot from me this is a JPEG straight out of the camera. This is not what I wanted and I have much better versions from the RAW file.

You can have a go at editing if you want and I will send you the RAW file if you wish.


P4229350 by alf.branch, on Flickr

 

[Purgatorio]

Excellent question and thread!
So in general:
Imagine you are on top of a lighthouse. You feel the wind, smell the sea, hear the birds go by and watch the sun go down. You take a picture. But at home this picture of the sun is not giving you, or telling someone else how it was all the way up on the lighthouse. We tend to make pictures when we see and feel something, struck by the beauty of the colorful stones in a river bed, or a open shoreline.
That is not a mistake, but when taking pictures you have become a visual story teller. Without sound, smell, or feel.
So when you see and feel something you would like to take a picture of, ask yourself, how would you tell what you see ir feel, your friends at BushcraftUK this in a picture? What will you show us, so we can imagine what you were seeing and feeling.
So walk around, trying different perspectives, shooting upwards or downwards,close or a wider shot, as sayd here whats in the foreground, and background,what should be in the frame and what not, almost close your eyes and see where the light is.
So before talking about light and other photographic techniques, give it a trie. Your picture looks already promissing!






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[lighty]

Had a quick go on your photo Brancho, if you do not like it....sorry

lighty

 

[lighty]

Didn't realise it was under moderation, thought I had made a mistake so posted twice...duh

lighty

 

[troutman]

Had a quick go on your photo Brancho, if you do not like it....sorry

lighty

Not to criticise but I really don't like that edit. Did you try to recover the lost shadows (cliffs, foreground) from a JPEG? If so there's not enough info stored in that kind of file to retrieve these details. This is what has possibly given it an overall white effect? With the raw I would recover lost shadows, alter the white balance to cloudy, to add more warmth and probably crop the sky to fit more with the rule of thirds. Maybe it would also benefit from some sharpening and a little contrast boost.

 

[The Cumbrian]

Here is a shot from me this is a JPEG straight out of the camera. This is not what I wanted and I have much better versions from the RAW file.

You can have a go at editing if you want and I will send you the RAW file if you wish.


P4229350 by alf.branch, on Flickr

You've made me feel all nostalgic there Alf; that shot was taken only a few miles south of where I spent almost every day of the summer holidays as a child. For those who haven't been to West Cumbria, if you turn right from the point that the photograph was taken, you'll see the hills of Dumfries and Galloway across the Solway Firth.

Cheers, Michael.

 

[lighty]

Not to criticise but I really don't like that edit. Did you try to recover the lost shadows (cliffs, foreground) from a JPEG? If so there's not enough info stored in that kind of file to retrieve these details. This is what has possibly given it an overall white effect? With the raw I would recover lost shadows, alter the white balance to cloudy, to add more warmth and probably crop the sky to fit more with the rule of thirds. Maybe it would also benefit from some sharpening and a little contrast boost.

No, I don't either but I have just signed up to the forum so thought that I would click it through an Editor for a couple of minutes just to join in this thread.

lighty

 

[Pandabean]

With a little bit of tweaking in Lightroom. I have warmed the scene up a bit and brought out some of the shadow detail in the cliffs and added some contrast to the scene.
Much more control would be available using the RAW file rather than the JPG.

If you could revist this scene at sunrise/sunset to capture the nice warm colours I think this would turn out very well, especially with a slow shutter speed. Maybe something could be added to the bottom left of the image to draw the eye in. A boulder? A piece of floatsem? Seaweed?




Original:

 

[brancho]

Had a quick go on your photo Brancho, if you do not like it....sorry

lighty

You are welcome to have a go but I do not like it.
I would suspect you needed to go a bit further and really up the contrast for this work IMO.

 

[brancho]

With a little bit of tweaking in Lightroom. I have warmed the scene up a bit and brought out some of the shadow detail in the cliffs and added some contrast to the scene.
Much more control would be available using the RAW file rather than the JPG.

If you could revist this scene at sunrise/sunset to capture the nice warm colours I think this would turn out very well, especially with a slow shutter speed. Maybe something could be added to the bottom left of the image to draw the eye in. A boulder? A piece of floatsem? Seaweed?




Original:

That is an improvement.
I do visit the location regularly it been a bit of project and part of my digital learning curve

Look HERE for my Flickr set. It a sunset location really as the morning light does get to the beach until the sun is well up due to the cliffs.

 

[brancho]

This is what I did with the shot but I was never that happy with this one.


Parton beach 22-04-13 by alf.branch, on Flickr

Here is another from that afternoon that I prefer.


Parton beach 22-04-13 b&w v2 by alf.branch, on Flickr

 

[Pandabean]

The top one looks a bit dark. Perhaps some nudigng of the exposure and shadows might help it.

The bottom one looks very good. However I can see that noise is starting to creep into the sky. Was this taken when the light was fading after sunrise or early dawn?
I think it is just the sky and limited amount of contrast in the scene that may be the issue.

Just had a look at your photostream and prefer the ones on there with the lovely colours and silky smooth rocks.

 

[Purgatorio]

I was going to say; try B/W but you did
What I liked from the a bit yellowish/magenta photo is that the water seems to come more to the viewer. But is in the foreground still a bit to dark.
I like the B/W version but were the color version seperates water from air is now gone. So when editing, think of yourself as the sun. Where would you shine on the water through the clouds? In the foreground for sure some more. Were the air touches the water/land is a white area. A clear giveaway of heavy editing and a not so good used mask. Try photoshop for it has more tools for this than a RAW converter.
And....good of you to bite into it, try, and show us!! Top!


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