C&C Snow Pictures

[thomascoe]

I recently got my first DSLR, a Nikon D5000 with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens, for Christmas and I took a bunch of pictures in the snow the next day. None of these pictures have any post-processing, they are straight from the camera.

I would like some comments/suggestions on the photos overall, as well as specifically what I could have improved with some editing. I have Adobe CS5 and am fairly familiar with it.

I know the last one is pretty dark, that is one thing I would like to improve by editing. What would be the best method to fix that? Unfortunately, since I had just got the camera I did not shoot in RAW. Though from now on I will try to shoot in RAW as much as I can.


1) Aperture Priority mode: f/3.5, 1/3200 sec, ISO 200



2) Scene Mode (Beach/snow): f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO 200



3) Scene Mode (Beach/snow): f/6.3, 1/13 sec, ISO 800

 

[Bram]

They all look like snapshots. The second one has potential if you erase the body.

 

[thomascoe]

They all look like snapshots. The second one has potential if you erase the body.

Can you elaborate on that? What do you mean by "snapshots"?

 

[Bram]

They look like they were taken without composition. There was no: I think this angle will be better, hmm let's try this side, maybe if I get down and take the photo. The dog is boring, it's a dog. The house has potential if there is no person there maybe in B&W. The first one, it's a snowman, how interesting do they get?

 

[sobolik]

The last one is a fantastic example of white balance being off. The photo has a distinct blue cast. It can be easily corrected in software though.

 

[thomascoe]

They look like they were taken without composition. There was no: I think this angle will be better, hmm let's try this side, maybe if I get down and take the photo. The dog is boring, it's a dog. The house has potential if there is no person there maybe in B&W. The first one, it's a snowman, how interesting do they get?

Thanks for the input, I know I still have some work to do on my composition... I have a pretty good understanding of the technical aspect- ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed, but I still need to work on composing pictures well.

The last one has a special significance to me, because the dog is my dog. And the 2nd one, because the man is my dad. And the 1st because we built that snowman. But now, I see how that would not be interesting to other people.

 

[Bram]

Therefore they are snapshots. You take snapshots (in the moment on the spot pictures) of people you love like that. You can take awesome photos of things that have significant value to you in different ways.

 

[thomascoe]

The last one is a fantastic example of white balance being off. The photo has a distinct blue cast. It can be easily corrected in software though.

Yeah, I have no clue how I missed that at first... I saw it right after I posted that. I'll tweak it a bit in Photoshop and reupload it when I get home.

Any suggestion on a good way to brighten the picture? Would just tweaking the brightness/contrast sliders in Photoshop be all I could do?

 

[Bram]

Fill Light.

 

[Compaq]

Whilst that may be true, I dare say you explained that poorly. What is fill light? It's not a given that everyone knows - or why use fill light instead of setting up/down the exposure compensation.

Anyway, I recommend starting experimenting with your manual/semi-manual settings (shutter priority and aperture priority), and take a little break before taking the shots, and think about what angle/background will look the best. You know - compose

But don't delete snapshots, they have their own charm, of course!!!!

 

[thomascoe]

Whilst that may be true, I dare say you explained that poorly. What is fill light? It's not a given that everyone knows - or why use fill light instead of setting up/down the exposure compensation.

Anyway, I recommend starting experimenting with your manual/semi-manual settings (shutter priority and aperture priority), and take a little break before taking the shots, and think about what angle/background will look the best. You know - compose

But don't delete snapshots, they have their own charm, of course!!!!

Yeah, I plan on keeping a lot of the snapshots and getting prints of them for my relatives, I know they'll love them.

And typically I do use Aperture and Shutter Priority modes the most (and full manual every once in a while). I was just using the scene mode for those two because I wanted to see how well the snow/beach mode worked.

For most of the ones I took of the dog, I was using Shutter priority because he was moving so much. I had to bump down the shutter speed in #3 though because it was getting dark. I just made sure the dog wasn't moving any.

Thanks for the detailed response, any tips you can give me on composition? I know about the rule of thirds and such. I think I just need a lot more practice, I've only had this camera for 4 days

 

[lildlege1]

They look like they were taken without composition. There was no: I think this angle will be better, hmm let's try this side, maybe if I get down and take the photo. The dog is boring, it's a dog. The house has potential if there is no person there maybe in B&W. The first one, it's a snowman, how interesting do they get?

Thanks for the input, I know I still have some work to do on my composition... I have a pretty good understanding of the technical aspect- ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed, but I still need to work on composing pictures well.

The last one has a special significance to me, because the dog is my dog. And the 2nd one, because the man is my dad. And the 1st because we built that snowman. But now, I see how that would not be interesting to other people.

I like them with the exception of the blue cast on the snow but if you are serious about photography you have alot of work ahead of you so with that said keep shooting and you will get better also keep learning about photography its wonderful!!!:thumbup:

 

[clanthar]

Hi Thomas,

Here's how to edit your photo. But first; when I downloaded your photo from Flickr I discovered the ICC profile striped out of the file. You have Photoshop which shouldn't do that to your photo. If you saved your photo from Photoshop make sure the box in the JPEG dialog is checked on for ICC profile.

You mentioned above using the Brightness/Contrast adjustments -- don't.

Open your photo in Photoshop. From the Image menu select Mode and switch the photo to LAB. From the Image menu -- Adjustments select Levels. Pull the right (highlight slider) to the left until the value is 220 (end of graph). Next pull the midpoint slider to the left until the value is 1.50. From the drop down Channels menu select channel "b" and pull the midpoint slider to the left until the value is 1.20. Go back and switch to channel "a" and pull the midpoint slider to the left until the snow is white (should be around 1.10). Click OK.

Back to the Image menu -- Mode switch back to RGB. Bring back the Levels dialog again. Find the three eyedroppers. Double click on the white (right) eyedropper. The color picker will pop open. Set the three R, G, B values to 242 each and close the color picker.

Make sure the white eyedropper is selected. With the eyedropper over the photo, right mouse click (Ctrl click MAC) and pick 5x5 average from the menu. On the right edge of your photo is what looks like a wood pile with snow on top. Use the eyedropper and click on the brightest section of that snow. Now the snow in your entire photo should be white.

Hopefully the house color etc. is also close to right. I figured your dog was too orange/yellow still and also a tad dark so I lightened him a little and pulled some yellow from his fur -- don't really know what color your dog is so I stopped at that point.

Joe

 

[thomascoe]

They look like they were taken without composition. There was no: I think this angle will be better, hmm let's try this side, maybe if I get down and take the photo. The dog is boring, it's a dog. The house has potential if there is no person there maybe in B&W. The first one, it's a snowman, how interesting do they get?

Thanks for the input, I know I still have some work to do on my composition... I have a pretty good understanding of the technical aspect- ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed, but I still need to work on composing pictures well.

The last one has a special significance to me, because the dog is my dog. And the 2nd one, because the man is my dad. And the 1st because we built that snowman. But now, I see how that would not be interesting to other people.

I like them with the exception of the blue cast on the snow but if you are serious about photography you have alot of work ahead of you so with that said keep shooting and you will get better also keep learning about photography its wonderful!!!:thumbup:

Thanks! Yeah, I want to improve my photography as best as I can, it may take me a bit to start thinking in terms of composition again. I was able to compose some really good photos several months ago with my old Nikon Coolpix. My school's art teacher though they were amazing, he put one in an art show he put on. Then the screen on my camera broke, and I haven't really done much photography since. I wanted to get back into it, so I got my dad to buy me a D5000 for Christmas.

I did some playing around with the photo of my dog, and I got the white balance fixed, and got it to brighten up a ton.


DSC_0157 edit by thomascoe, on Flickr

 

[mrpink]

They all look like snapshots. The second one has potential if you erase the body.

Can you elaborate on that? What do you mean by "snapshots"?

Snapshots get saved on your hard drive.. photographs get printed and framed.

Some said fill light. Yes, fill light. When taking photos in the snow, fill light is almost always needed due to the large amount of light coming in from the surroundings. This can be achieved by simply using your pop up flash with a dialed down setting, it takes some trial and error but can be very useful in these situations.

Quick example of fill light (from a SB-600 speed light) in a snowy setting


DSC_9168ww by Matt Francosky, on Flickr





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