Park shots. Looking for soime C&C.

[RockDawg]

I'm looking for some educated opinions on these shots I took at a local metropark.


1.

2.

3.

4.

I'd appreciate the input. :thumbup:

 

[JimmyO]

Last one is amazing!

 

[RockDawg]

Thanks.

 

[Do'Urden's Eyes]

The first one seems a bit underexposed.

 

[RockDawg]

The first one seems a bit underexposed.

Really? It looks pretty good to my untrained eye. I realize the bottom left is a bit dark, but it was heavily shaded there. Maybe my monitor is just too bright. I do appreciate the input. Anyone else think it's underexposed?

Also, 2 & 3 seem lacking to me, but I can't seem to put my finger on it? Anyone care to comment on what could make them better?

 

[manaheim]

Pictures in areas like this can often be SUPER contrasty, so you do tend to get wicked dark areas from time to time, and you just have to kind of accept that and do your best. (esp. since you usually want to try to get a nice blue sky, which means you don't want to expose it too much)

That being said, yeah, I do think shot #1 is particularly dark/underexposed.

I'm a ridiculously poor judge of natureish photography so I won't comment too much further, but the flower pic was pretty slick.

 

[mygreenbird007]

I'm not sure that I'd say 1 was underexposed necessarily because you want some color in the sky. I'd just say some post-processing might be a good idea to just tease out some of the detail in the dark area. I've had problems with dynamic light like that before.

That being said - composition could be improved; it seems like the water line shouldn't necessarily hit the halfway mark (just me, I love my thirds )

Composition and exposure on 2 and 3 are great. You have a good eye for landscapes IMO. Do you have a polarizer on your camera? That might help in making the sky a little more interesting (not to mention the benefit you'll see across the board in color).

Not a huge fan of 4 b/c I've seen that kind of shot many times over. I'd try to take the flower off-center for a more interesting shot. Technically, it's good - DOF is perfect.

 

[RockDawg]

I'm not sure that I'd say 1 was underexposed necessarily because you want some color in the sky. I'd just say some post-processing might be a good idea to just tease out some of the detail in the dark area. I've had problems with dynamic light like that before.

That being said - composition could be improved; it seems like the water line shouldn't necessarily hit the halfway mark (just me, I love my thirds )

Composition and exposure on 2 and 3 are great. You have a good eye for landscapes IMO. Do you have a polarizer on your camera? That might help in making the sky a little more interesting (not to mention the benefit you'll see across the board in color).

Not a huge fan of 4 b/c I've seen that kind of shot many times over. I'd try to take the flower off-center for a more interesting shot. Technically, it's good - DOF is perfect.

I don't know much about how to post process and when I try I end up changing things so much I can no longer tell what looks good. That probably sounds pretty stupid. I know subtle changes usually return the best results, but I only seem to be ablke to register large changes. With that said, I'll continue to play around with it and see what I can come up with.

You're right about the water. As a beginner, I'm thinking about so many different things when I take a shot, that sometimes I forget some of the most basic and most important aspects.

Thanks for the compliments on 2 & 3. I appreciate it, but I'm a little surprised becasue they bothe seem a bit soft or something to me. Something just seems a tad off about them. I do have a polarizer and, in fact, I had it on in all these shots, but as I mentioned above about forgetting things, I may have forgot to make sure it was positioned correctly before snapping them.

I know what you mean about 4 being done a lot. Again, I'm a beginner and it is litereally one of the first macros I tried (or at least as "macro" as I could get with the 18-55 kit lense). I'm sure I'll shoot many typical scenes/subjects along the way, but they'll be new to me and my reportoire and will help me develop my skills while giving me something to shoot.

Once again, you're right about the composition on 4. It's amazing that sometimes I don't even notice it until someone points it out. This hobby can really make a newcomer feel pretty stupid sometimes.

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my photos. I truly appreciate it.