Camping. C&C please :)

WhyNotMe · Sep 29, 2009

Hey everyone, went camping a few weeks ago and loved it. Wanted to share a couple of pictures.

and here is a before and after photoshop...i saw the technique used in the forums somewhere.
Before:

after:

and here is one i just took a couple of days ago while taking a study break

benlonghair · Sep 29, 2009

First one has potential, but your subject's in the center and doesn't really give any sense of movement up the rocks. I feel like there should be something off to the right.

The second and third, the before, technically, is much better. Focus is better, you got the dynamic range on the clouds, nothing's blown out. The HDR or tone mapping effect isn't bad on the grass, but unnecessary and detracts from the rest of the photo, imo.

I like the 4th one best. Could use a little exposure, but not bad. Maybe 1/3 stop or something. I dont' know how I feel about a line running directly down the center of the photo, but that could be worked on with cropping.

thenikonguy · Sep 29, 2009

they all look very snap shotty to me.. the edit on the second/third one is terrible.. as everything has lost focus altogether.. it just doesn't look good at all.. there are images out there that work for HDR/Tone Mapping, and there are images that don't.. this one doesn't..

the last one has some potential, but needs some editing..

TJ K · Sep 29, 2009

I think the edited one came out not very good. It looks like you went to clarity and sharpening and just brought them all the way down. 1 and 2 are like regular snapshots but 3 with a little saturation boost and some other editing tricks it could come out to be a decent picture.
TJ

WhyNotMe · Sep 29, 2009

Thanks for the replies! Would you say im good at exposure at least? thats what i have been working on the most. Im obviously still working on composition...and my editing skills lol.

benlonghair · Sep 30, 2009

I think the exposure on all three is pretty decent. Are you shooting in RAW? Cause RAW adds a whole plethora of changes that can be made.

I'm just now learning about curves and how they work (still don't really understand "how" they work but I know what they do). PP is the hardest part to be great at, imo.

WhyNotMe · Sep 30, 2009

I am shooting in RAW. But i dont really have a clue how to do a lot of things. I want to learn about curves, but have been putting it off due to the intimidating explanations about it lol.

benlonghair · Oct 1, 2009

WhyNotMe said:
I am shooting in RAW. But i dont really have a clue how to do a lot of things. I want to learn about curves, but have been putting it off due to the intimidating explanations about it lol.

Just play with it. Have your histogram open, see what it does. Try to get your histogram centered, unless it's supposed to be really dark with a single light element (think shooting the moon). I have no idea what I'm doing, but I think most of mine come out OK.