C&C Por Favor

[Tkot]

Some shots from today. Tell me what you think!

#1

#2

#3

 

[AgentDrex]

#1 - I see you're following the "Rule of Thirds" but for one...this is not one of those times you would use this rule...when there is too much dead space on one side...try to fill the whole frame with something...this is under-exposed as well...

#2 - Again, under-exposed...but now following the "Rule of Thirds" is needed as you have filled the dead space with leaves...very nice...those two leaves at the top are distracting however...could clone them out...or not...this is a common thing I do as well...the floating flower phenomena...a different angle would help that out...so the flower doesn't look like it was pasted on top of a OOF photo of leaves...

#3 - Long exposure night shots are fun...this composition doesn't work as an interesting photo...just keep practicing until you get that one shot that makes you go "WHOA" and then kill your darling...here's what I mean...if you love it, you'll be too subjective and cannot be a good judge of the true quality of the photo...so delete it...http://wendypalmer.com.au/2008/09/25/writing-rules-misapplied-kill-your-darlings

 

[The_Traveler]

Some shots from today. Tell me what you think!

#1

#2

#3

IMO, the picture looks drab and flat without any punch.
And there is a bright spot in the upper right that pulls the eye.

Increasing the contrast (using curves), increasing saturation, cropping to remove some of that dead space make the flower more prominent and burning the edges to keep the eye from wandering produces a more interesting picture, I think.

 

[clanthar]

The flower photos are not underexposed; they have compressed tonal ranges and need Levels corrections.

Joe

 

[AgentDrex]

I always have noticed compressed tonal ranges produce a sort of fog appearance across the whole photo...in underexposed photos...whites look greyish...these look underexposed...

 

[clanthar]

I always have noticed compressed tonal ranges produce a sort of fog appearance across the whole photo...in underexposed photos...whites look greyish...these look underexposed...

A compressed tonal range looks flat (fog), if the compression is entirely on the highlight end, as in these, the photo will also appear dark. An examination of the histogram contains the answer.

 

[AgentDrex]

Fair enough...thank you for the good education...you rock sir!

 

[Tkot]

Thanks everyone for the replies!

Drex, I agree with you about the first one, I really just wanted to post it up because of the way I took it - I blocked the left hand side of the flash with my hand, so all the light went to the flower and left everything else black. Just screwing around really, was fun!

You're right, the second one is a bit dark (I'll stay out of the "underexposed" and "compressed" discussion and just say that). Thanks for the edit Traveler, I'll see if I can duplicate that!

The third one was another screwing around shot - I stuck the camera out of the car window while driving downtown, I think I had a 2.5 second shutter speed. The big orange squiggly was a car parallel parking. Fun stuff!

 

[AgentDrex]

Oh man...I love those long exposure shots...they can be the funnest...IMHO...keep shooting...

 

[The_Traveler]

What Lanthar said, and illustrated, is a key issue.

 

[Tkot]

Definitely.

With the tonal compression in mind I did some editing... whaddayathink?

#1

 

[The_Traveler]

color looks better but the flower is in the dead center (read about composition) and the filaments of the flower are not sharp.

 

[Tkot]

Yeah, rule of thirds, I know. I personally like it, but then there's Drex's thing about killing your darlings and all that. And now that I think about it, I guess there's a reason they call it dead center.

I definitely agree about the DOF though, I do need to work on that a bit more. Thanks for the comments!

 

[johnh2005]

The flower photos are not underexposed; they have compressed tonal ranges and need Levels corrections.

Joe

Could you tell that just from looking at the photo or did you look at the Histogram to learn that? If you picked that up just from eyeballing it... nice...

 

[clanthar]

The flower photos are not underexposed; they have compressed tonal ranges and need Levels corrections.

Joe

Could you tell that just from looking at the photo or did you look at the Histogram to learn that? If you picked that up just from eyeballing it... nice...

I can tell just by looking at the photos. I'm a retired college photo teacher -- still teach 1 or 2 classes now part-time. About 5 years ago I passed the 1/4 million student photo mark. I've looked carefully at a lot of photos.

Joe