Introduction and a few shots.

[saahild]

Hi all,

I am a university student studying economics, and have never really been much of an artistic person.

Most of my photography needs were more then met by my camera phone. However during a recent bout of insomnia I found myself awake when the sun rose, which is often very beautiful.

This lead me to purchase a proper camera and learn a bit about photography, so that I could photograph things when I came across something that was really worth taking a picture of.

And ofcourse being a major car nut and having a website dedicated to my car, I also wanted to be able to take the kind of artistic pictures of my car that you see in all those magazines without hiring a professional photographer (which can be very expensive).

At first I was going to buy a point and shoot camera, but then a friend recomended that I check out crossover cameras, the inbetween of the p&s and the slr.

To this end I went out and purchased a second hand S9600 as a first camera, to learn about photography before I spent hundreds and hundreds on a proper SLR and lenses.

That started me on my journey into photography, however out of the hundreds of pictures I have taken so far, only a very select few are in my opinion worthwile displaying.

Already reading through the tutorials I have learned alot about Aparatures and Shutter speeds and such like, but I was hoping to perhaps get some feedback from more seasoned photographers into how I could take better pictures, more often.

At the moment I am concentrating on photographing my car because I can park it somewhere and it doesn't mind sitting around not doing anything for an hour or two while I take lots of photographs around it.

Attached are a few of the better photographs I have taken, mostly in the auto mode, experimenting with angles and locations.

All pictures are untouched and as they came off the camera without any filters or flash. I have just resized them and cropped one to make it 16:9 for my wallpaper. They were taken at 9mp fine.

Needless to say all opinions, edits, advice, abuse, comments are welcome and appreceated .

 

[AUS-10]

1. Underexposed, and the flash you used makes the plate stand out way to much. A tripod or a good sturdy surface and a slower shutter speed would've worked better for this since its pretty dark out. The trash and whatnot in the background of all of them is distracting and should be thought out better. Also the subject is centered and that tends to take away from it. Look into the "Rule of Thirds."

2. Underexposed, headlights are distracting and focus seems to be a bit off.

3,4. Sky is washed out. Getting down a little bit more level with the car or slightly above wouldve worked better along with either doing a 3/4 or a head on shot and not somewhere inbetween. Just doesnt look nice. Also clean up the trash in the background.

5. A LITTLE bit better. But the flash is again reflecting like crazy off the plate and making it stand out. Crop the right side so the gutter is out of the frame.

6. Again a tripod or study surface wouldve helped to reduce the motion blur since it looks like it was handheld. The stores in the BG are also WAYY distracting. My eyes want to look more at the stores tahn the car.

Im sure I missed some things. Anybody else?

 

[saahild]

Sorry have I done something wrong?

 

[AUS-10]

Sorry have I done something wrong?

Accidental post I editted.

 

[bazooka]

I don't think so. It's generally a good idea to only post a few pictures (1 or 2, maybe 3), but considering your pictures pretty much all use the same subject and aren't very different from each other, you should be ok in that respect.

I have to be honest with you, at the risk of sounding brutal.... but these suck pretty bad. You might find better pictures in auto-trader. With the exception of #1, all the shots are taken at eye level. The night shots have major white balance issues. The backgrounds are very distracting/uninteresting. The license plate is distracting. The car itself is not too interesting, although I imagine you could come up with a way to incorporate it into an interesting photograph.

I recommend you read up on some photography basics... rules if you will. These should get you started. Make a list of them. Go through this list before you take the shot. It's a good exercise.

 

[saahild]

Thank you for the comments. I shall take them all on board. THe main reason I posted them was that these were the best of over 200 pictures, and I could tell there was something not quite right, but no idea what.

AUS-10: I can see where you are coming from especially in picture 1 and 3,4. Shall keep that in mind in future when framing (I think that is the word) the pictures. Thank you for your input.

bazooka: I rather you be honest then sugar-coat it for me. I will take all that you have said on board. What I am understanding is that the framing and general composure of the picture could be much better. Get lower down or higher up, and choose better places. I think I will leave the night pictures for now and gather up the skills for well light shots first.

These pictures were before I came across this website, but I have gone through the tutorials so am hoping to go out there and take some better pictures.

 

[AUS-10]

Thank you for the comments. I shall take them all on board. THe main reason I posted them was that these were the best of over 200 pictures, and I could tell there was something not quite right, but no idea what.

AUS-10: I can see where you are coming from especially in picture 1 and 3,4. Shall keep that in mind in future when framing (I think that is the word) the pictures. Thank you for your input.

bazooka: I rather you be honest then sugar-coat it for me. I will take all that you have said on board. What I am understanding is that the framing and general composure of the picture could be much better. Get lower down or higher up, and choose better places. I think I will leave the night pictures for now and gather up the skills for well light shots first.

These pictures were before I came across this website, but I have gone through the tutorials so am hoping to go out there and take some better pictures.

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

 

[bazooka]

I am also looking foward to seeing progress. I'm glad you took my critique as I intended.

Just some quick reading I think would help you a lot. Google "photographic composition rules" or "photography tips" or something to that effect. Learn to use background, foreground, lines, light, darkness, etc. Just learning some basic stuff would really help you out I think.

Another thing you might want to try if you just really want to shoot your car .... check out some professional auto-photography... artistic stuff as opposed to advertisement stuff (unless ad is what you're going for). You can even search the threads here for auto shots that got good CC and try to recreate or at least take note of how yours differs from theirs.

 

[saahild]

Ofcourse . I mean if you take the time to look through and think about the shots I take, the least I can do is take on board what you say and improve from it.

Will do as suggested about the composition.

It is not so much I really want to shoot my car, it is just a useful subject that doesn't complain that I am taking hours or it is cold out, and is always avaliable when I want to shoot. Plus cars are my first passion, so am hoping that will come through in my photography. I will do a search but are there any photographers (usernames) in particular you would suggest I follow the works of on here?

 

[bazooka]

I can't help you there, I'm inexperienced and new here as well. However, if you click on the "Active Topics" button toward the top, there is currently a long thread of car photos by whomever wants to post... some are good, some aren't. But it might give you some ideas. Maybe you'll see a style that you like and can try to recreate.

EDIT: instead of being lazy, I'll post a link. http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photo-themes/39751-automotive-your-car-photography.html

 

[saahild]

Well I took on board what you said and as I walked to my car this morning, and saw the drops of water on it, I decided to take a few pictures. Mostly played with the aperature to give a blured, and then sharp(er) background. There were shots from better angles but they didn't look as good to me. What do you reckon?

1.

2.

3.

 

[florenceinitaly]

Hi, I am a major in economics too!

Congrats to your new found hobby lol - for your second batch of pics, I think the 1st one is not bad...the second one I'm not sure what you're trying to focus on, the 3rd one's angle isn't too bad either.

If you're interested, you may want to check out some library books on photography, some will talk about photo composition and technical stuff.

 

[saahild]

In retrospect I should have used a faster shutter speed for that picture.

It was meant to be the exhaust tip and the condensation from said tip "fogging" the background but as the car was on and he tip was slightly vibrating, it came out a bit blury.

Generally speaking though would you say that there was some progress from the early work?