First pictures.. Please C&C

eurytopic · Sep 20, 2008

I've been taking pictures as a hobby for a while now - but want to get a bit more serious about the art. I picked up a Nikon D300 and am using the kit lens from my old D70 (18-70mm). These pictures are from the first serious outing with the D300, a vacation to Cancun. Some photos are cropped, some have a bit of color correction done in iphoto. I also have Photoshop CS3, but for quick and dirty correction iphoto is stupid easy and fast!

1.

2.

3.

4.

Resin42 · Sep 20, 2008

eurytopic said:
but for quick and dirty correction

That makes me laugh.

Hi, welcome to TPF. Nice shots, I really like 2 and 3 in particular. I think all could do with a fair bit more contrast, (fear not, this is my warcry). That's a nice kit you've got yourself there, I'll look forward to more shots.

JuliaBug · Sep 20, 2008

I'm just a beginner, so I really don't have any criticism for you. I just wanted to say that I love number 3.

cnvang · Sep 20, 2008

Great work. I specially like #2. #3 is good too, but I think if the background was also in focus, like how you did #2 it would be even better and also show more of the left side, because after I look at the statue, my eyes tend to go left wanting to see more of the sunset or whatever is over there....

Sabin · Sep 20, 2008

Dang, if you had a bigger version of number 3 up there it would so be my desktop picture for the next month. Well...I guess you could say it "speaks" to me (man I hate sounding so corney) I think it would benefit if you cropped out the column on the far left side. I think that might be what's drawing cnvang's eye over there.

manaheim · Sep 20, 2008

2 and 3 are both very nice. I might boost some saturation, contrast, etc. and do a bit of sharpening, but the captures themselves are great.

I want to like 4, but it doesn't quite work for me... I think I'm expecting the colors to pop more, but I also feel like the sand is a bit too much dead space.

1 didn't work much for me, but then animal shots rarely excite me. It does look like you may have missed the focus a bit. I can't see where in the pic the camera is focused.

I have the D300, too. It's an awesome camera. I did find I had to adjust contrast, sharpness and saturation a bit to make me happy... of course, you can do that in PS, but I found I was doing it SO consistently, that I just turned it up a bit on the camera itself.

Congrats on the new beast.

eurytopic · Sep 20, 2008

Thanks for all the great comments! I was afraid to over saturate or put too much contrast into the pictures, but I see that for some (especially sunset pictures) it can really help. I edited one to see if it is a bit better...

DoshKel · Sep 20, 2008

I really like 2!

cnvang · Sep 20, 2008

That works for me...I feel like there's a balance now.

potownrob · Sep 20, 2008

I love #2

manaheim · Sep 20, 2008

Right idea, but you may have gone a touch too far now... you also changed the color balance. :lol:

Which is fine, just funny.

Still, looks nice.

bwlergh · Sep 21, 2008

1. Goodness, that one is gorgeous.
2. Your balcony railing doesn't seem too sharp, is that post iphoto quality decrease or is it blurry in the photo itself?
3. Was the silhouette photoshoped/illustratored in?

eurytopic · Sep 21, 2008

Manaheim, thanks for the feedback - I've been playing with photoshop using adjustment layers and starting to figure out what I'm doing. The color balance is different because it is actually a different picture and the lower balcony in the new picture is visible and had a green cast - so I tried to color correct for that. I ended up with a compromise, masked the lower balcony off and just corrected that. I can't believe you didn't like my monkey picture, your signature says you love monkeys!

bwlergh, I'm not sure why the balcony wasn't sharp. I didn't do any pp on that one. Maybe it's out of focus? It was shot at f3.5 so that's possible. The silhouette is an actual statue, not photoshopped.

kundalini · Sep 21, 2008

I really like them all, even the monkey having its snack, since nobody else wants to comment on it. :biggrin:

I like the way you controlled the luminance of the lamp better in the second shot of the statue, but the one on the right is a bit distracting. I think the wider shot in the second is better also, gives more of a complete thought.

I do like the shot of the beach and the pattern of lines of the fishing nets and retaining wall create. The post in the retaining wall doesn't help though, but little can be done with it unless you cloned it out. I don't have the patience or skills for that kind of work myself. A bit of boost in contrast and saturation might help.

I too, have the D300. Just wait until you put some good glass on it. :biggrin:

BTW, welcome to TPF.