New Canon 600D + the last time i touched a SLR was 13 years ago :)

[segev]

In the far past i used to love photograpy but didn't had nothing to do with it in the last 13 years. Now i got a camera as a present and can't stop reading and talking about hdr.
I'm posting here the first ones i took to hear what you guys have to say and maybe learn a few things on how to improve. I think that some of them are good but i might be way off
I'd love to hear what you think

 

[bs0604]

I like them. #2 has some halo to the right of the trees. Also they all seem to be a bit out of focus. If shot with autofoucs I have found that the focus ring will slightly shift between bracketed frames, so I now use manual focus. Perhaps sharpening in Photoshop would also help.

 

[segev]

I noticed the focus thing in other bracketed pics i took. I'll try using manual focus next time. Thanks for the tip!

 

[vipgraphx]

I like #1 the best. Not sure if there is a focus issue or if this is the result of HDR. I have noticed that coming out of photomatix images tend to look like this and I have to fix it in post. I look at my exposures and they are all fine and sharo.
I think that is what is going on here..This looks to me straight from HDR software...could be wrong though.

#1 - I think like the view. I would have taken the time to try to mask out the blow out yellows. Also could probably have used another - exposure, Also a bump in sharpening probably a high pass sharpening would work well but then mask out the back ground. To bad the sky is lacking color other wise this would be an excellent shot!

#2 - You have haloing and a very dirty sky that needs to be fixed. I think you are lacking depth in the photo so adjusting your levels would help that as well as using a selective color layer to adjust blacks and neutrals.
Composition wise I no not like it. It does not do anything for me.

#3 - I think is your weekest shot. and will not comment to much on this.

#4 - I like the city. My second favorite. YOu have some blown out white that need masking and the sky is a little dirty (the right side). I would love to see how that looked in the night!

Thanks for sharing!

 

[segev]

Thank you for your comments.I'm really lacking in post. The only post I'm doing right now is sliders wise . Just started using PS and LR. If some one can direct the to some sharpening & masking guides , that would be great.

 

[segev]

vipgraphx, I've read your comments more carefully and edited my first post with more sharpened images. On #2 you said that it lacks depth and adjusting levels would help. Can you explain more about that?
What do you mean by depth and what levels should i adjust?

I'll try to improve those pics and see how it goes.

 

[vipgraphx]

yes, on number 2 if you look at the photo you don't see any black in it. You have some dark grey tones but not black. Black is needed in pictures to give depth so that the image does not look flat. Its what one would refer to as Z depth. if you have your axis of XYZ "Z" would reefer 3 dimensional the way you look into the photo and see that there is a fore ground that would be closest to you. then the mid ground which is further away and last the back ground which is the furthest away. Some times when processing HDR you loose that because programs such as photomatix tends to flatten and soften things.

levels would be used to adjus the three levels in the image such as black, grey and white. If click on the black and white circle in your layer pallet you will have options for many things to adjust such as vibrance and sturation, levels, selective color..I will stop there I think you get it..those are what I would normally select with my photos.

Here are two images I adjusted.

1 is just a quick edit and got some of the sky looking better ( I did want to spend to much time on the sky so its not perfect ) What I did was just in photo shop I used the created a levels layer and adjusted the blacks and midtones. Then I created a selective color layer and adjusted blacks , nutrals, red and yellow.

results

This one I added some warmth a glow to soften it up a little as I thought it was a bit on the cool side in colors. ( I used nik color effex for this look with the above photo shop edit )

I hope this helps!!

 

[segev]

Great stuff! I understand now a lot better the importance of blacks and depth. Thanks a lot!

 

[jafa]

Nice!

 

[ch3360]

Segev,

I'm new also and addicted to HDR... I posted my first set in general gallery. I like your pictures. As someone told me "If you like your pictures that's all that matters"......