First time shooting manual - C&C please (4 photos)

Babs · Oct 15, 2010

I've finally taken the leap and turned that little dial to "M". These are my first pictures taken today at Dungeness, Kent, UK.

Any and all C&C appreciated.

(Dungeness is a pretty desolate headland, housing a nuclear power station. The houses are all a bit unusual and a lot of artists and new-agey types live there. The words are actually on the side of the house ... and no, I can't read them! I've tried! :mrgreen: )

tirediron · Oct 15, 2010

C&C per req:

1. Overall, well exposed, but a levels/curves adjustment to slightly brighten the front face of the buiilding might not go amiss. I can't help thinking this would be a much stronger image if somehow composed so that the text on the wall could be easily read.

2. Well exposed, but with a minor WB issue. The image appears to have a slight yellow cast. Not the most interesting subject, but a good one for learning exposure.

3. Nice scene, well captured sky, and technically I think the exposure is correct. but I think it might have been improved had you exposed for the white on the boat hull. That would have eliminated the too-hot highlights, and left you with a simple curves adjustment to bring the rest of the scene to the optimumm exposure.

4. Exposure is fine here, but the scene is rather 'bleah' IMO. I think this would have been much stronger shot from somewhere image left looking at the boats from a 3/4 aspect.

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

supraman215 · Oct 15, 2010

Babs said:
...a lot of artists and new-agey types live there...

Must be a lot of LF film shooters there then. :lmao:

I love the dramatic color in these. I'd love to know how you got it that way because I can see it's not just a saturation thing.

Babs · Oct 15, 2010

Thanks tirediron. You're becoming a regular on my C&C request threads

I appreciate it.

tirediron said:
I can't help thinking this would be a much stronger image if somehow composed so that the text on the wall could be easily read.

I know! That darned text is bugging me now! Unfortunately it's really hard to tell what's private ground in this area because most of the houses aren't fenced off, etc. I wasn't sure I could get the picture of the text without trespassing. It's annoying though!

tirediron said:
2. Well exposed, but with a minor WB issue. The image appears to have a slight yellow cast. Not the most interesting subject, but a good one for learning exposure.

Thanks. I should have said that it was taken for a photo challenge with a friend - theme "yellow". I don't normally go round taking pictures of bulldozers! :mrgreen:

Thanks for your other comments. Seem my exposure isn't too far off most of the time, which is good. Thanks for your time

Babs · Oct 15, 2010

supraman215 said:
Babs said:

...a lot of artists and new-agey types live there...

Click to expand...

Must be a lot of LF film shooters there then. :lmao:

"LF film shooters"?? Sorry - still learning the lingo! There are quite a few people that have galleries running out of their houses around here. I haven't investigated many yet, but it's one of my favourite places to go so I will soon.

supraman215 said:
I love the dramatic color in these. I'd love to know how you got it that way because I can see it's not just a saturation thing.

Thanks. A lot of it was pure luck. The sky was really dark and overcast across the mainland, but was clearer (but still cloudy) over the sea. As I was on the shore, the sun came through the cloud, giving a warm hazy light which looked pretty good against the dark sky.

I'm not great on the technicalities of post-processing yet, so I've only adjusted to autolevels in PS and increased the yellow saturation marginally in Lightroom on the bulldozer picture to pull out some yellow colours on the shingle. That's it.