Newbie to the site and my Nikon D3300 using Manual.

[MerseysideGiant84]

Ok, so this is my first day for a few things. My first posting on this site along with my first images taken using a DSLR (Nikon D3300) in Manual Mode. I have limited experience in photography, using manual settings on my compact camera which taught me the absolute basics (Hopefully). Finally decided to take it to the next level and purchase a DSLR, practise what I have learned (so far) and now gain some feedback from my peers. Please review my first images taken and leave any feedback from which I can learn and improve. Thank you in advance for any tips, advice and feedback provided.

 

[sparelink]

First thing notice is your horizon lines are way off.

 

[tufopix]

Welcome! I'm sure you learned at least something using your compact in manual mode before switching to a dslr. That's how I started and I think it definitely helped the learning curve when I moved to a full-manual film slr. Those photos aren't bad at all. Yeah the horizon line is off and your compositions could use a little work, but that'll come with practice.

In the first pic (002_02), you made things a bit tricky by shooting towards the sun. With a single exposure from that angle, it's going to be impossible to have the tree, sky and ground all exposed well at the same time. When one is exposed right, the other two will be over and underexposed. So you'll have to choose one to focus on. In this case, the ground is the closest to being perfect while the sky is blown out and the tree is black, but it seems the tree was your intended subject. A photo of just the silhouetted tree against the sky would be an interesting composition.

The third pic (004_01) is a great example of how much your angle to the light source can change things. The clouds are a tad hot but, overall, everything is exposed fairly decently. The trees in the foreground get lost with the trees in the background, but you'll develop and eye for that sort of thing as you go.

The shallower DOF in the second pic (003_01) works well to highlight the bush. At the risk of blowing out the sky a bit and losing the tips of the branches, you may have been able to go a little brighter to really show the body of the bush. Again, it's tough to nail a photo against a bright sky with just a single exposure. You can experiment with combining multiple exposures by exposing for the bush/ground then exposing for just the sky and combining them in photoshop. At first glance the horizon line in that pic looks off, but the mountain in the background and the cement pillars suggest it's actually just a hill. Try lowering the bush in the frame a bit and it would be pretty solid composition using the rule of thirds.

Something that will help a lot with these types of photos is a Circular Polarizing Filter. You can rotate the filter allowing you to darken the sky a bit which will definitely help. Another plus is you can also use it to help lessen or even completely get rid of reflections when shooting shiny surfaces like glass windows.

I help this helps

 

[MerseysideGiant84]

Wow tufopix thank you for the great advice. The terrain is shot in the Peak District, England which is mountainous and difficult terrain. I tried being a bit artistic by including the sun (what there was) in a couple of the shots. Obviously it doesn't work, lesson learned, first of many. Thank you for the great advice and the Filter is definitely an idea for consideration. I really need to learn about post production editing, one step at a time. Thank you again for the advice and taking the time to write so extensively.

 

[Designer]

Please review my first images taken and leave any feedback from which I can learn and improve.

Welcome!

First; when you have your photos in some editing software, there is probably a way to make them just a bit smaller so you can then make them appear in the thread. I make mine to fit within a 1024 pixel rectangle.

Second; posting three photos is too many for me (not apparently for tufopix though).

 

[elemental]

tufopix' feedback is right on, and I agree that horizon lines are the biggest thing that jump out at me. One thing that might help you incorporate some of the feedback on the second and third pictures is to ask yourself "what is my subject?" The scenery is interesting, but what are you trying to emphasize? Is it the texture of the bush in #2, the contrast between the dark branches and bright sky in #1? Once you decide on this, you can think strategically about how to emphasize that element (composition, exposure, depth of field, etc.). This also helps when you have tradeoffs, like the challenge of exposing everything properly in #1 (depending on what you want to do, there may be elements you can leave out).

This may sound simple, but it can be a pretty profound question. I've been doing this for a while, and I still have to slow myself down sometimes when I see an interesting scene and think "what am I trying to capture here?"