What's new

Photo Feedback

TehYoyo

TPF Noob!
Joined
Dec 23, 2012
Messages
107
Reaction score
5
Location
Northeast Chicago Suburbs
Can others edit my Photos
Photos OK to edit
I think this is the right section? Can you give feedback on these three pictures I took in London? Thanks, Zach.

Spire Photograph
$_DSC8993.webp
Big Ben1
$_DSC9015-Edit.webp
Big Ben2
$_DSC9009.webp
 
Would love to have seen detail in the clocks so try exposing 1 stop less. No need for detail in the sky. Also Big Ben is the bell inside the clock tower.
 
The "Galleries" area is probably a better spot to request comments. I'd put this in the "Landscapes & Cityscapes" gallery.

As for comments... you're dealing with some dynamic range problems. You probably want the lights to have a pleasant glow... but they're really blown out. The clock-face is a bit of a dominant feature, but it's heavily blown out. You're also having some depth of field issues. The exposure needs to be reduced. Unfortunately when you reduce the exposure to get the lights correct, the darker areas will drop to the shadows even more. This would be a good candidate for HDR (not the cheesy surrealistic HDRs... a pleasant natural HDR.)

Mostly what your images are featuring are distant objects, but they are soft. Image 1 has the bridge railing in the foreground, but it slashes indiscriminately through the image and isn't really a feature of the image.

Looking at the EXIF data, I see you took this at f/8 at 18mm -- but it appears you focused on the bridge railing which just a few feet away. Let's call that 5' (I have no idea how far it really is). Your DoF would only be about 16' feet (far limit would be about 20'). That's not enough to get the background focused.

When you're taking these cityscapes, no need to rush through it... think carefully about depth of field selection. At f/11, the DoF "far limit" would have jumped to infinity.

On the next shot ... clock tower as seen down the length of the bridge ... you did jump up to f/11 and the focus on the background is improved. It's still a little soft, but much better than the first shot.

Shot #3 provides what I think is the best focus on the background out of the three... but it is overexposed -- so we're still losing a lot of detail in the clock-face.
 
Hmm.. didn't see the clock face as a problem.

Are you sure the softness isn't down to lens? I'm using a kit lens, so that's probably considerably less sharp than you might be used to. I'm trying to figure out if I'm focusing wrong (the lens is broken, so I have to use MF) or if it's just inherently the lens.
 
When I check the RGB levels on the white bits of the clock face... it comes in at 255, 255, 255... in other words it's over-exposed.

Here's a link to a photo at the Wikimedia commons: File:Houses Of Parliament Clock Tower (Big Ben).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Notice all the detail on the clock face that doesn't show up in your image.

Here's a stock image at a website showing a composition similar to yours but also taken at night (which is what I wanted to find): Big Ben Clock Tower And Parliament House At City Of Westminster, London England Uk Stock Photo 128676272 : Shutterstock

Notice the clock face is not so bright and (while their sample image is tiny) you can actually see there's a lot of detail on the clock face.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top Bottom