Your HELP required - Industrial Berlin (image-heavy!)

[Alex_B]

Hmm, actually not something lengthy ... sorry

First of all, I think for all images the large versions work best!

1, 2 and 3 I really like, with 1 being the winner (blame the writing ).

4 to me appears a bit cluttered, filled with detail, and that seems even more so with 4a since the brighter details appear even brighter and more prominent.

5 is very nice, and the tilting does not bother me much, even though it usually does. Maybe it is because the car is so nicely placed below the white cross of pipes
However, the hazyness is a bit of a spoiler, maybe selectively increasing midtone contrast for the building might help.

6 ... well, the strong distortion and the converging lines put me off. converging lines work well in some images and don't in others. And here it does not work IMHO.
You need a shift lens

 

[LaFoto]

5 ... the hazyness is a bit of a spoiler, maybe selectively increasing midtone contrast for the building might help.

It was POURING with rain. Really heavy downpour! I had HOPED to capture that, too, but it seems like I didn't.

And Pete, so sorry, but my ancient old Photoshop 6.0 version does not have this distort-function ... too bad, eh?

6 ... You need a shift lens

Oh yeah! Too true.
But I didn't even get round to getting me the 50mm lens that I promised to get me as a late Christmas present (by my Dad). Not even that! :roll:

 

[Alex_B]

It was POURING with rain. Really heavy downpour! I had HOPED to capture that, too, but it seems like I didn't.

Hmm, so that diagonal texture is actual rain? well, now that I look closer I might guess it .. but maybe it works better in the original than i nthe downscaled version.

Oh yeah! Too true.
But I didn't even get round to getting me the 50mm lens that I promised to get me as a late Christmas present (by my Dad). Not even that! :roll:

too bad!

but there is a trick, if you are willing to waste some resolution you can take a landscape picture in portrait and only use the upper part of it. That can nicely reduce or eliminate converging line perspective.

I did it on this one for example:

 

[The_Traveler]

Dear LaPhoto,

Since everyone has already made all the possible good comments, I'll just keep to the areas where I think there could be some improvements.

Aside from the minor verticals that aren't quite vertical, I think that the dark areas in some of the pictures are way too flat and undefined. If you look at #2, for example, there is very little tonal variation in the foregound where trees and buildings overlap. The colors are different but the tones are similar and when the pictures are transformed into B&W, these very close tones all merge into one mass.

It might be that some manipulation of the color images to change the contrast in the darker areas to 'spread' it out a little will give a more defined B&W. It might also lend itself to using a channels approach to making these B&W.

 

[LaFoto]

Thanks for that tip, Traveler.
I more or less "played" with these before I even just began to understand a conversion by using the channels. I have meanwhile read about it in a photography magazine, and I might try my hands on that Photo 2 again using that approach. It is not exposed in the best manner to begin with, I'm afraid. I was only just taken in by the two canals opening to the left and the right, that big cooling tower and the power plant behind it (which features in Photos 3 and 4, as well). Behind me was that big, black cloud which is to be seen in 3 and 4 (as that is a view backwards from the stern, while 2 was taken from the bow) and which gave us the bucketload of rain later.

So - off to the Channel Mixer .

Thanks Alex ... I might not be in the situation to be gliding past my motifs on a chartered boat any time soon now, so I might get more chance to step back and plan my composition (and possible faulty vertical lines) more. I see the flaws in 6, I certainly do. I had the kit lens on for that one put to something by its possible widest angle and that did not work too well.

Next time .

Ah! :idea: How about my question on the possible slide-show? (post 27) Any thoughts on that?

 

[ktm293]

I like 6a better, gives it a much older style feel to it.