Photos I've shot, criticism encouraged

rock3ralex · Aug 7, 2010

Hi all! I've been into photography for the last 6 months or so. I took a photo class in High School and then purchased a Canon Rebel 450D XSi around Christmas of last year with the 18-55mm EF-S IS Lens. It's the stock lens that comes with the kit.

I was wondering if you guys can critique my photos, what do you like and not like. I've been looking for a long time and really like the professional style photos. Do you guys have any guides that you can recommend me to read. I've gotten some really good shots but I want to learn consistency. What settings I should use to get really full colors. What settings for dramatic shots and curvy sort of lines.

Here is what I've shot so far.

A lot of the photos I get are just by accident. I really want to be more consistent. Any guides I can read with photo examples and settings you guys know of so I know more of what I look for?

tirediron · Aug 7, 2010

Far too many images upon which to provide individual critique. In general, you have some interesting subjects and good compositions. A couple of points that come to mind are: Most of your images are skewed; if you don't shoot level, always try and level in post. Also you have some exposure issues. Particularily for images such as #1, read up onthe use polaring and graduated neutral-density filters.

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

DennyCrane · Aug 7, 2010

Just a couple comments-

The quad shot is nice. It could use a little post editing to slightly boost color saturation and contrast, and add a little sharpening. Just tiny tweaks will really improve this.

The rose would have been better with the whole flower in focus. A higher number f-stop will help here.

The last shot of the RC car is neat. It almost has a 3D feel to it. Maybe crop it down a touch to get rid of that pipe in the upper left. It's distracting. But it's a good shot.

In all landscape shots, be aware of your horizon. A lot of shots are tilted. That can be edited later, but it's better to get it right in the camera.

misstwinklytoes · Aug 7, 2010

I played with the contrast and curves in #3 and the last one. Hope you like! (Lemme know if you want me to take this down.)

LCARSx32 · Aug 7, 2010

Post fewer pictures and everyone will give you critique on each one. Try to stay under 5 pictures per post. You can always post more after the first set is critiqued. I try to keep my posts between 3-5 pictures. Also, number your pictures so we can refer to them by number.

That said, you're off to a good start. I suggest googling the "exposure triangle". Many of your shots are over exposed, so learning that will help significantly.

I'll give you a quick critique of your shots

#1: The waterfall is over exposed to the point of being blown out. The center composition of the waterfall makes the picture a bit bland. If you could have gotten to one side or the other, I think it would have looked better.

#2: Could have been better with a larger depth of field (DOF). Instead of f/5.7, try something like f/8 or f/11. The larger the f/#, the wider the depth of field, so more of the moss will be in focus.

#3: The guy's shirt is overexposed. A faster shutter would fix that. It would also have darkened the background to black, which I think would have helped as well.

#4: Exposure's good, but your focus isn't. Your subject should be the guy on the 4 wheeler. While it's neat that your camera can pause the mud, it's not a very interesting subject. This may have been a situation where manual focus would have worked better. Otherwise, this could have been a very interesting shot.

#5: I like this shot of the waterfall better, but it's still over exposed. A faster shutter will bring out the detail in the waterfall itself. If you shoot in raw, you can brighten up the surrounding scene during post processing (PP).

#6: This shot has some motion blur. Which is surprising given the 1/200 shutter speed. I'm also not sure why you had it set to ISO 400 in broad daylight. Was it darker than the picture lets on? Perhaps the f/22 is why you were upping the ISO? My best guess is you were attempting to get both the Buffalo(?) and crowd in focus. If I were you, I would have gone with something like f/8 so the buffalo was in focus and the crowd was not. It would have given the same feeling, your subject would stand out more, and you would have had a higher shutter speed to minimize camera movement.

#7: The ground in front of the geyser is in focus, not the geyser itself. A larger f/# would have helped. You may have had to manually focused for this one.

#8: Night photography with lights is tough. The lights in the lower part of the picture are waaaay distracting. Look for buildings without lights, or where the lights add to the picture. Also, your horizon is not level and give the picture an unbalanced feel.

#9: I was happy to see you used f/7.1 on this one, but you should have upped it a bit more. Since there's nothing interesting happening at your focal point, that means the whole flower is the subject. Most of the time, you want your entire subject in focus. So in this case, the entire flower. It would have contrasted very nicely with the background. It's still a decent shot, though. Nice composition.

#10: By far, my favorite shot. The focus and composition are spot on. You just need to watch your exposure. You seem to over expose your images, so you may want to try shooting with a slightly faster shutter speed than you think you need.

All in all, it's a good first showing. You have an eye for composition. I think once you have a solid understanding of exposure and how aperture controls DOF, you'll improve by leaps and bounds.

Keep shooting and posting!

-Ray

rock3ralex · Aug 8, 2010

LCARSx32 said:
Post fewer pictures and everyone will give you critique on each one. Try to stay under 5 pictures per post. You can always post more after the first set is critiqued. I try to keep my posts between 3-5 pictures. Also, number your pictures so we can refer to them by number.

That said, you're off to a good start. I suggest googling the "exposure triangle". Many of your shots are over exposed, so learning that will help significantly.

I'll give you a quick critique of your shots

#1: The waterfall is over exposed to the point of being blown out. The center composition of the waterfall makes the picture a bit bland. If you could have gotten to one side or the other, I think it would have looked better.

#2: Could have been better with a larger depth of field (DOF). Instead of f/5.7, try something like f/8 or f/11. The larger the f/#, the wider the depth of field, so more of the moss will be in focus.

#3: The guy's shirt is overexposed. A faster shutter would fix that. It would also have darkened the background to black, which I think would have helped as well.

#4: Exposure's good, but your focus isn't. Your subject should be the guy on the 4 wheeler. While it's neat that your camera can pause the mud, it's not a very interesting subject. This may have been a situation where manual focus would have worked better. Otherwise, this could have been a very interesting shot.

#5: I like this shot of the waterfall better, but it's still over exposed. A faster shutter will bring out the detail in the waterfall itself. If you shoot in raw, you can brighten up the surrounding scene during post processing (PP).

#6: This shot has some motion blur. Which is surprising given the 1/200 shutter speed. I'm also not sure why you had it set to ISO 400 in broad daylight. Was it darker than the picture lets on? Perhaps the f/22 is why you were upping the ISO? My best guess is you were attempting to get both the Buffalo(?) and crowd in focus. If I were you, I would have gone with something like f/8 so the buffalo was in focus and the crowd was not. It would have given the same feeling, your subject would stand out more, and you would have had a higher shutter speed to minimize camera movement.

#7: The ground in front of the geyser is in focus, not the geyser itself. A larger f/# would have helped. You may have had to manually focused for this one.

#8: Night photography with lights is tough. The lights in the lower part of the picture are waaaay distracting. Look for buildings without lights, or where the lights add to the picture. Also, your horizon is not level and give the picture an unbalanced feel.

#9: I was happy to see you used f/7.1 on this one, but you should have upped it a bit more. Since there's nothing interesting happening at your focal point, that means the whole flower is the subject. Most of the time, you want your entire subject in focus. So in this case, the entire flower. It would have contrasted very nicely with the background. It's still a decent shot, though. Nice composition.

#10: By far, my favorite shot. The focus and composition are spot on. You just need to watch your exposure. You seem to over expose your images, so you may want to try shooting with a slightly faster shutter speed than you think you need.

All in all, it's a good first showing. You have an eye for composition. I think once you have a solid understanding of exposure and how aperture controls DOF, you'll improve by leaps and bounds.

Keep shooting and posting!

-Ray

Thanks a bunch! You've really helped me. I do have an eye for composition. I think the reason for over exposure is the LCD displays the colors differently than my computer screen, making me shoot slower than I need. I generally shoot in Tv mode to adjust the shutter. Do you recommend auto iso?

can anyone shed some light on iso settings? roughly where to be in what conditions? I generally try to shoot around 100-200 when possible but I don't know if I'm having to over compensate too much with the aperture and shutter.