shooting in color

[tide619]

so I'm shooting with a canon rebel xt and my color shots are ok, but no where near as good (in my opinion) to my black and white shots. Can someone give me some tips on settings like color/contrast/saturation/etc on shooting in color both indoors and outdoors? Thanks

black and white shots

color shots

how can i make the sky look darker and not so hazy

also if you want to see more of my pics to critque/or give me some tips they're at http://flickr.com/tide619

thanks

 

[skieur]

Your colour shots are better than your black and white. You need to take a look at the dynamic range from rich blacks to white whites in top quality black and white photography examples, and you will see that your work is not even close to that level.

Night shots by the way are generally taken when the lights come on, but there is still sufficient light in the sky to give some detail to the outside of the buildings and the skyline.

Your night street shot is on the warm/orange side. This can be corrected by adjusting your colour balance in camera or in postprocessing if you are using digital and with a filter if you are using film.

skieur

 

[WDodd]

I'm not going to comment on color since I am on my laptop and the screen is less than reliable. But the blue sky one could probably use a polarizer.

 

[JIP]

I actually like the sky in that last one.

 

[Garbz]

I personally prefer my night shots to be warm and orange. After all that's the colour of mercury vapour lights. As for the haze, not a lot to do about it unfortunately. It's light pollution. Maybe shooting on a cloudless day would help a bit but generally you'll never get a black sky unless you're in the country.