you ever notice

[Scarecrow]

when your trying for a kickass pic with your dslr it just doesnt come out like you want, but when you take a snap shot with your cell phone it great....

[TPF Sponsor]

[molested_cow]

That's what RAW is for.

[Scarecrow]

I shoot in RAW but have not had a picture come out like this one yet. Maybe its just me and not seeing what I missed but from what my amateur eyes see it looks good anything I can do to improve on this style of photo?

[cbrown222]

I shoot in RAW but have not had a picture come out like this one yet. Maybe its just me and not seeing what I missed but from what my amateur eyes see it looks good anything I can do to improve on this style of photo?

I think your biggest issue is that there's a motorcycle in the way.
If you want the motorcycle to be the main subject, get the focus on that, if you want the landscape to be the focus, then don't bother with the motorcycle

[pharmakon]

You asked what could be improved so here's what I see:

Boats, Blurry bike, Dirty beach, cluttered bay, teeny mountain way back in the distance.

0. Less cluttered vista
1. Straighten the horizon
2. Define a subject within your image. Is it the bike or the vista? Find a way to emphasize that.
2.5. Consider DOF. Focus is on your handlebars and mirror?
3. Less random objects leading eyes out of the frame (the clipped boats and seawall in this case)
4. No reflections of the photographer unless intended.
5. Generally looks a little flat and/or cold. The coldness doesn't seem to go well with the rest of the image.
6. The way you incorporated the motorcycle doesn't seem to add to the photo, after looking at your other photos on smugmug I think there are other parts of that bike that look more interesting than the gas cap.
7. The random boards going into the water need to go away. They are distracting and don't add anything to the photograph

What part of your photography are you referring to when you say the phone snapshots come out better than the DSLR ones? Is it the composition? The exposure? Find whats "Missing" in your intentional photographs and work on improving that.

[Scarecrow]

Well now that you point out all those errors thanks for the help Pharm. What I was trying to do was incorporate a different angle of the bike in with a kick butt background. I didn't even notice how cluttered it was with the boats and the seawall back there until you said something. I thought the boards added to the picture with the lines pointing to the apex of Fuji in the BG. Thanks for the tips man I will go back to the drawing board and refine my shooting skills.

What I feel most of my pictures are messing up is the composition...I just cant seem to nail that sucker for some reason...

[mishele]

Well now that you point out all those errors thanks for the help Pharm. What I was trying to do was incorporate a different angle of the bike in with a kick butt background. I didn't even notice how cluttered it was with the boats and the seawall back there until you said something. I thought the boards added to the picture with the lines pointing to the apex of Fuji in the BG. Thanks for the tips man I will go back to the drawing board and refine my shooting skills.

What I feel most of my pictures are messing up is the composition...I just cant seem to nail that sucker for some reason...

Want to learn about composition? Here is some light reading for ya.....lol
Photography Composition Articles Library
Enjoy!!
Keep shooting!!

[Scarecrow]

WOW just looking at that list my eyes went cross!!!!

[pgriz]

Thanks, Mishele - good list to review.

[mishele]

I think the link was posted by Bitter a while back......so thank Bitter for finding it....it's a good read!!

[mishele]

WOW just looking at that list my eyes went cross!!!!

READ IT!! It's worth it!!

[KmH]

WOW just looking at that list my eyes went cross!!!!

Then it's time to find a new hobby?

[Scarecrow]

Alright Ill read it and Keith yer no fun

[Patrice]

What I feel most of my pictures are messing up is the composition...I just cant seem to nail that sucker for some reason...

That is a pretty common shortcoming of many photographers just starting out. Many experienced photographers will stumble on this as well if they are not paying attention.

Your brain is a very efficient filter of image information. You tend to see what you want to see and ignore the rest. As you imagine the image you want to create your brain starts to ignore elements in the frame that are not the main focus of your vision. A viewer of that image does not have that filter since he was not a participant in the thought process and so his brain assigns equal weight to all the elements present in the image. Same reason why every photo of a loved child is a classic portrait to the parents of that child but not so much to a stranger.

You need to practice looking at every element in the viewfinder and evaluate its contribution to the total image. This does not ever become an unconscious exercise and so remains an active process to every image. You could say that is the difference between a well executed photograph and simply a well exposed snapshot. With a bit of practice this becomes easier and faster but the need to do it does not go away.

[pgriz]

^^^ What he said.

One reason the senior members in my club often use tripods is that it allows them some time to compose the shot then scan the sides all around the frame to make sure they don't include extraneous material. Can be done manually, but is easier when the camera is stationary on a tripod.