Help. Ugh. Please Help...

[essentials]

I'm really starting to get frustrated. I feel like I'm missing something. I made a post about this last week but I think it was too long for some people so I will keep this one short.

What am I missing that is preventing my photos from looking "professional", in terms of quality? I feel like such an amateur attempting to be a professional, pouring thousands into something and nothing is happening. I'm aiming for that SOOC professional quality. Something I can be proud of.

I have my photos for display here: 500px / John Gannon / Photos

So far I believe one of my killers has been a focus issue which I just can't seem to resolve... I feel that not one picture I have taken over the past 4 months has been sharp enough and I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels, wasting time, until I get that resolved.

I really just want to get this straight...

Your help is appreciated.

 

[ceejtank]

Hi John - to accurately answer this - post some specific pictures on here, so we don't have to go to an outside site, and post the settings you shot it with.

 

[davisphotos]

I would say the first thing I notice is the heavy handed processing-it reminds me of myself when I first started out with Photoshop 7 about 10 years ago. The extremely high contrast sort of kills it for me. Plus there is a selectively colored photo in the mix. Again, something I did when I started out, but generally not a good look.
I'm not seeing the sharpness issue you note, but I would suggest really working at getting better light. You have some great sunsets, but the rest of the photos you have seem to have been shot under overcast skies or at mid day, and the light is pretty flat and boring. Searching for better, more contrasty light will also help your sharpness issue and make you less likely to want to crank the contrast up to 11 in post.
Hope this helps.

 

[runnah]

Find find the OP's username and the subject of focusing issues highly ironic.

But since most of your photos seems to be low light I would say it's because you are shooting wide open. Or for example the dusk shots might not appear in focus if the trees, clouds or grass happen to move during the slower shutter speed.

 

[Propsguy]

What camera and lenses are you using?

I see nice images on your site... the "Zeiss Building" and the Lights in the City" photos stand out for me. I'm not generally a fan of most sunset photography because I find the composition has to be absolutely stellar to stand out from the other billion very good sunset photographs out there, but what I see is quite good for what it is. What, to you, deems a photograph to be "professional"?

 

[cgipson1]

Most of us will not click links.. so posting specific shots with the issue you are referring to will help! Numbered, and with exif data intact please.

I did CLICK.. and I see that a lot of your images are taken with a 18-55 kit lens (not known for sharpness) and a 35mm 1.8 (again, has some issues). The 12-24 is a decent lens...

I see a lot of shots at F22 on the landscapes.. and you will start having diffraction softness stopped down that much. I seldom shoot landscapes over F8 to F11.. which are typically the sharpest apertures on most lenses.

I see you shoot the 35mm wide open quite a bit.. on a $200 lens, wide open may not be a good idea. If you check DXOMark and some lens reviews.. you will find that it is sharpest at 5.6 - F8.

You also have a lot of very slow shutter speeds... on what look like handheld shots. Never a good idea! Even on a GOOD tripod, you have to use good technique (remote release or self timer, mirror up, etc..) when using slow shutter speeds.

These are just some quick ideas.. since I NOT going to through every image you have out there... but I do feel everything I mentioned is a possible problem, and valid! YMMV!

 

[essentials]

Nikon D3200, Nikon 12-24mm - No Filters. I used Lightroom for contrast and exposure enhancements only. Graduated filter was used on the Red sunset to bring out the foreground, based on a prior suggestion. No other enhancements have been made.

Red Sunset: 12mm, 1/5s, f22, ISO 100

Silhouette: 19mm, 1/20s, f22, ISO 100

Lake Sunset: 14mm, 20s, f22, ISO 100

 

[cgipson1]

Nikon D3200, Nikon 12-24mm - No Filters. I used Lightroom for contrast and exposure enhancements only. Graduated filter was used on the Red sunset to bring out the foreground, based on a prior suggestion. No other enhancements have been made.

Red Sunset: 12mm, 1/5s, f22, ISO 100

Silhouette: 19mm, 1/20s, f22, ISO 100

Lake Sunset: 14mm, 20s, f22, ISO 100

View attachment 34715View attachment 34717View attachment 34719

again, F22.. not the best choice... Diffraction softness! These are also way oversaturated...

Are you on a tripod? What Tripod? What head? Remote release?

 

[essentials]

Thank you all for the feedback. Definitely valued. I'll need to re-evaluate my technique a bit with the aperture. Definitely need to visit that again and read some more about it because I think I totally misunderstood some of the sites I've read.

Edit: cgipson, using a $50 tripod I picked up at bestbuy, it has a solid base that I usually plant firmly into the soil, it's fairly solid but I definitely feel I could find a better one in the near future. It's a ball head and I'm using a remote for the shutter. I'm using "LiveView" for most of the tripod shots because apparently the D3200 doesn't have the mirror lock feature. Sadly.

Neutral Density is my next purchase from what I've been told and read, that's where I need to go for the compositions I'm aiming for.

 

[essentials]

What, to you, deems a photograph to be "professional"?

What I'm feeling at this point is primarily the clarity of the picture and I believe it's already been narrowed down rather quickly from a few others here. I feel stupid because I didn't even look into it. Explains so much... I've been taking all my shots lately with f22 because of this website that stated f22 was the best for landscape... sigh. I need to be more careful about who I trust as the "authority" in this industry because a quick google search of "diffraction softness" comes up with a ton of websites chastising photographers like me for relying on f22... Sigh.

 

[jowensphoto]

Rather than read what some internet stranger says is "best," try going on Flickr and finding some photos that are examples of what you want to achieve. Most people do not turn off the EXIF data, so take a look and see what settings and focal lengths were used.

 

[Mully]

Do some tests in early morning or late afternoon where you are shooting at f8-11 125-250 sec on a tripod and see what your lens and camera is putting out... keep a shooting list. See if you don't have an improvement. Don't sharpen them in post.

 

[Mully]

When you pull 90% of the color out you can see the glitches in processing

 

[Tee]

On top of everything said above, never underestimate proper output sharpening. Done the right way, it really adds that extra pop.

 

[pgriz]

A pretty good way to figure out what works, is to experiment. For instance, the shots you took at f/22 - you could also have taken a series starting at your widest aperture, and progressively closing down the aperture to your minimum, without changing anything except your shutter speed to match the change in aperture. Then you look at the series and get a sense of what each aperture does for you in terms of depth-of-field, sharpness, etc.

As Charlie noted, shooting at the high end of the aperture scale usually degrades fine detail due to diffraction effects, but whether that is a negative or not depends on the amount of fine detail you need to see in the finished image. For instance, using a 12mm focal length on your 3200 at f/4 focused on 6 feet will give you everything in focus from 3 ft. to infinity. I got those numbers using the DOF calculator here: Online Depth of Field Calculator. So you don't need to go to high f/stops to get the DOF you want. However, as you increase the focal length, the DOF gets narrow very quickly. If you shot the same settings with 55mm focal length, your "sharp" range will be from 5.7 ft. to 6.3 ft.

One thing that will greatly improve the quality of your images if you shoot long-shutter exposure images, is to have a really solid and non-vibrating tripod/head combination. If you have any doubts about this, set your camera up to expose at (say) 6 seconds, and during the exposure, touch your tripod lightly. If it is NOT solid, you'll see blur in the final image, which blows any attempt you make at have a sharp image, right out of the water. There is a reason why people buy expensive tripods and heads.

Finally, if you're shooting lots of sunsets and the like, with strong contrast between the sky and the ground, you'll want to invest in graduated ND filters. It's quite common to have a 6-stop difference in brightness between sky and ground, and if the camera has a dynamic range of 8 stops, you will have a hard time getting everything in without either blowing the highlights, or blocking the shadows. So a 3-stop ND filter will reduce the disparity between the two. Again, your specific shooting conditions should guide your choice of how many stops the ND should be and if it should be a soft or hard grad.