Please critique latest river landscapes

[SquarePeg37 8]

I like the light that you captured in these and the scenes are all beautiful. You got some great advice already. I just wanted to comment that it’s very likely that a lot of the landscape photos that you admire are 50/50 photo/processing. They’re not one shot using just the right settings. Many of them are multiple exposures or composites and involve a significant amount of PS technique and creative license.

I think you’re off to a great start at getting the scene you want but to get that look that many landscape photos have that is stunning, you’ll need to work it from both sides of the process.

 

[Vieri4 3]

If you wish to improve, I think two technical and artistic suggestions would help you the most. The first suggestion is to avoid so frequently defaulting to the 18mm focal length of your 18-35mm zoom lens (I suspected this, and later when I looked at your EXIF, my suspicion was confirmed on the majority of your images in this post). The 18mm focal length setting makes the foregrounds physically large on-sensor, but it also makes the background objects very small, and less-impactful, as well as increases the physical width of the background angle of view in relation to the foreground width. I find wide-angle landscapes often quite boring, with very little detail visible beyond 20 to 50 feet...this is the single,biggest problem I see in landscape photos from many,many people, especially in this type of forest/woodland type of landscape genre.

The second issue is to avoid using long shutter speeds and creating blurry clouds; frequent use of Neutral Density filtration as a way to create drawn-out shutter times is has now fallen into the category of over-used technique in the modern era, and this type of blurred cloudscape rendering immediately injects the photographer's technical decisions right into the heart of the photo, and steals from the realism of the scene, which I think is counterproductive most times. Too much blurring of water and clouds strikes me as contrived and formulaic. There's a fine line between too much, and just right as far as water goes. When clouds start being rendered as blurry...the shutter time's typically too long. IMO.

When people are, as ac12 writes, "trying to figure out the subject or composition", I think this is often because short focal length lenses used in many landscape scenarios create a wide,vast image, with everything that's beyond 20 to 25 feet being rendered as tiny, and with very little visual impact.

If you want to make better landscapes, start thinking about more frequently using a 35 to 180mm focal length range lens selection on the D800.

I completely disagree with this, sorry: your suggestions are just as formulaic as the ones you suggest to avoid.

"Realistic" has nothing to do with the interpretation of a landscape, which is what makes landscape photography interesting for landscape photography of the kind the OP is attempting, IMHO. Photography in never "real", is always an interpretation of reality. Reality is in 3D, is seen through our eyes which are about 50mm lens, and time is constantly moving. A photograph is in 2D, is seen through lenses which are often very different from 50mm and fixes a moment in time: so, a photograph is always an abstraction / interpretation / representation / etc of the real world, but is never real, nor can it be. It can be "realistic" of course, and aiming at "realistic" photography is great for news, PJ, portraits and so on, even necessary for that kind of photography, but much less so for the case in point here.

As far as the "technical", long exposures are a great tool, as are short exposures. Long lenses are a great tool, as are wide-angles. Shooting wide-open is a great tool, as is shooting stopped down. All these tools are great to have in your toolbar of expressive possibilities, in fact the more tools the better, it all depends on how you use them and to express what. Suggesting zulu42 to get rid of some photographic tools just because you don't personally like them is in my opinion detrimental to his or her photographic and artistic development: keeping an open mind and learn how to use as many tools as possible helps artistic development, being close-minded and formulaic never does.

Just my .02 of course.

Best regards,

Vieri

 

[zulu422]

I like 1 and 2, but 2 wins.
#1 is kinda confusing to my eye. Do I look at the ground on the left bottom or the river? IOW my eye is trying to figure out what the subject is.
#3 is like #1, my eye is trying to find the subject or composition.

Having said that, I admit that landscape composition is HARD, for me.
I was never trained in the arts.

Thanks for the helpful feedback, ac12.

If you wish to improve, I think two technical and artistic suggestions would help you the most. The first suggestion is to avoid so frequently defaulting to the 18mm focal length of your 18-35mm zoom lens (I suspected this, and later when I looked at your EXIF, my suspicion was confirmed on the majority of your images in this post). The 18mm focal length setting makes the foregrounds physically large on-sensor, but it also makes the background objects very small, and less-impactful, as well as increases the physical width of the background angle of view in relation to the foreground width. I find wide-angle landscapes often quite boring, with very little detail visible beyond 20 to 50 feet...this is the single,biggest problem I see in landscape photos from many,many people, especially in this type of forest/woodland type of landscape genre.

The second issue is to avoid using long shutter speeds and creating blurry clouds; frequent use of Neutral Density filtration as a way to create drawn-out shutter times is has now fallen into the category of over-used technique in the modern era, and this type of blurred cloudscape rendering immediately injects the photographer's technical decisions right into the heart of the photo, and steals from the realism of the scene, which I think is counterproductive most times. Too much blurring of water and clouds strikes me as contrived and formulaic. There's a fine line between too much, and just right as far as water goes. When clouds start being rendered as blurry...the shutter time's typically too long. IMO.

When people are, as ac12 writes, "trying to figure out the subject or composition", I think this is often because short focal length lenses used in many landscape scenarios create a wide,vast image, with everything that's beyond 20 to 25 feet being rendered as tiny, and with very little visual impact.

If you want to make better landscapes, start thinking about more frequently using a 35 to 180mm focal length range lens selection on the D800.

Absolutely, I have fallen into an 18mm rut, so I appreciate you noticing and pointing it out. Not to eliminate it, but to be more selective in focal length when the distant objects need full impact. Also see the value in controlling the shutter speed on long exposures. Not just a looooong shutter, the right shutter speed.
Thank you for taking the time to view and offer a considered comment.

I like the light that you captured in these and the scenes are all beautiful. You got some great advice already. I just wanted to comment that it’s very likely that a lot of the landscape photos that you admire are 50/50 photo/processing. They’re not one shot using just the right settings. Many of them are multiple exposures or composites and involve a significant amount of PS technique and creative license.

I think you’re off to a great start at getting the scene you want but to get that look that many landscape photos have that is stunning, you’ll need to work it from both sides of the process.

Thanks so much SquarePeg. Agreed on the post process. A learning push on that end would be helpful.

IMO #2 is the best composed.

Thanks espresso!