Ducati

[sanchez_a]

Thoughts?
Second photo is my personal favorite.

 

[MLeeK]

Distortion is killing the first and last.
THey're rather flat and underexposed.

 

[sanchez_a]

Distortion is killing the first and last.
THey're rather flat and underexposed.

Feel free to play with it, I'm not sure what you mean by distorted. The bike is leaning on a kick stand.
Also, the dull dark look is kind of what I was aiming for.

 

[tirediron]

Have to agree with MLeek here; these are definitely lacking. First, the basics: Your background; I'm sure that you could have found somewhere that didn't have chain-link fencing and part of a building in the background. Exposure: Definitely under-exposed; nothing withstanding that you were going for a "dark" look, these are just under-exposed.

What you needed here was an off-camera light which would have allowed you to increase the exposure on the motorcycle RELATIVE to the sky. The sky isn't blown out, but it is rather watery and boring. A single speedlight in a medium soft-box would have made a world of difference!

While the 'down low' shooting position works for sports cars, I'm not sure it works here. I would suggest you would have been better off moving more to your right and elevating the camera so that the lens axis was around the centre of the headlight.

The second image has a lot of potential, but I'd like to see the whole of the right-side gauge in the image, even though it's very softly focused, I think that would help.

The last image does nothing for me; in fact if I didn't know better I would think you'd put your camera down on the ground and accidentally tripped the shutter. Dont' forget to keep your camera level when shooting - in #1 it's on a significant lean!

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

 

[MLeeK]

Distortion is killing the first and last.
THey're rather flat and underexposed.

Feel free to play with it, I'm not sure what you mean by distorted. The bike is leaning on a kick stand.
Also, the dull dark look is kind of what I was aiming for.

The bike is leaning and your angle combined to give you a foreshortening effect.
I guess if you want dull and dark you got it. There is a lot of muddy gray here and a lot of black with no details.
Is your monitor calibrated?

 

[sanchez_a]

It would have been nice to pick another location but this was actually taken last minute at a car meet.
Took the criticism into play and this is what I came up with. Played with the saturation to maintain the "dull" look. Also tried to make the subject stand out of the background.
Chew it apart!

 

[SCraig]

Why do you want it to look "Dull"? Even a flat black Monster has gray parts and chrome parts and gold-colored parts that should stand out as bright.

 

[sanchez_a]

Honestly, just chose not to go that route. I'm glad you can appreciate the bike as much as I do though!

 

[Frequency]

I like #1; i wanted the horizon straight though

 

[Dikkie]

I like the second one as my fav !

 

[binga63]

i had a play too... took it over the top

 

[SCraig]

Honestly, just chose not to go that route. I'm glad you can appreciate the bike as much as I do though!

Anyone who likes bikes can't help but appreciate a Ducati. I'm not a big fan of standard bikes, but even so they are gorgeous machines.

The problem with your "Dull" look is that it's causing the subject to become subordinate to the background. Be honest and try this: Look at your photo and see what they very first thing your eye is drawn to. For nearly everyone it's going to be that bright sky in the background. You need to find a way to make the bike take center-stage and not the sky behind. Had it been a dull, featureless sky it might have worked, but this doesn't in my opinion.