Seeking some C&C

[AntwanRTTG]

Hello,

As my informal introduction into this forum, I would like to get some C&C with an image.

Short intro/background: I got interested in photography about 2 years ago through my interest in motosports. I did some (honestly, not very much) research and picked up a Nikon D40. After the purchase, I picked up some tips and techniques here and there, but it all kind of fell off. I don't have any intentions of being a professional or anything like that. I am more interested in an alternative means to attempt to express myself. Also, I have recently been blessed with my first child and that is now where my inspiration comes from. I don't have time to take any classes, and quite frankly I just don't learn whilst in a classroom. So I see this as an opportunity to learn from mistakes that I am making.

To be clear I am not looking for information on how to go about post-processing the images that I post as they will just be direct conversions from my RAW pictures to TIFF images. (using ViewNX 2) Obviously I am a complete noob. However, I have been trolling this forum for quite a while.

If I am not being clear in what I am looking for, please just ask.

Thank you,
Anthony

I'll start with one photo and see how this goes...
As I said before, here is my inspiration (Gavin 3 1/2 months).
All of the EXIF is with the photo on Flickr.


Gavin by anthonyRTTG, on Flickr

 

[BrinkofDisaster5]

Love the picture, very cute!! The only advice I can give is maybe less background distraction?

 

[tevo]

WB isn't set quite right, busy composition.

First step: investigate "exposure triangle"

go from there.

 

[MTVision]

Question. Why shoot in RAW if you are just going to convert them without any processing? Might as well shoot in JPEG as the whole point of shooting in RAW is editing.

 

[photo guy]

Looks a little too brown to me

 

[SoonerBJJ]

White balance is off. Composition is off. Centering the subject isn't very interesting and the background is too cluttered and distracts from the subject. Focus is off and the lighting is off. The eyes are OOF and in shadow.

Read up on composition and exposure. Look at great photos and consider what make them great. Try to emulate those principles with your own personal touch.

This is a cute snapshot in poor light but that's about it.

 

[AntwanRTTG]

Love the picture, very cute!! The only advice I can give is maybe less background distraction?

Thank you.

WB isn't set quite right, busy composition.

First step: investigate "exposure triangle"

go from there.

Thank you, tevo. I grasp the concept of exposure, or so I think. However, I was reading a Ken Rockwell write up about the D40's, and he said: "The D40 tends to overexpose, so I leave it set to -0.7 exposure compensation." I had adjusted the exposure compensation while trying to take some photos recently and I think I am now getting underexposed shots. Also, I am still trying to get the WB setting configured.

Exif | Gavin | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I will read more into this, but thanks again for you input.

Question. Why shoot in RAW if you are just going to convert them without any processing? Might as well shoot in JPEG as the whole point of shooting in RAW is editing.

Thank you for your reply, MTVision. I will be processing them. However, my intent is to be able to do less "correction" in PP, and shoot better raw photos to start with. I know that there are plenty of people that can do some amazing PP work. However, I am not one of them.

I plan to post my finished photo to get some C&C on my PP ... eventually. I am just not concerned with that right now.

White balance is off. Composition is off. Centering the subject isn't very interesting and the background is too cluttered and distracts from the subject. Focus is off and the lighting is off. The eyes are OOF and in shadow.

Read up on composition and exposure. Look at great photos and consider what make them great. Try to emulate those principles with your own personal touch.

This is a cute snapshot in poor light but that's about it.

Thank you, SoonerBJJ.

Exposure and Composition ... I'm on it.

 

[fjrabon]

Megan's point was, until you start doing post processing on your pictures, you might as well save the space and processing time and shoot JPEG Fine.

 

[AntwanRTTG]

Megan's point was, until you start doing post processing on your pictures, you might as well save the space and processing time and shoot JPEG Fine.

Thank you.

My apologies, Megan. I figured I didn't answer your question or I misunderstood.

I do process my pictures. I just posted this picture before PP.

Am I wrong in trying to obtain better exposure initially, rather than adjusting it later? Or am I thoroughly confused?

 

[Gaerek]

Thank you.

Thank you, tevo. I grasp the concept of exposure, or so I think. However, I was reading a Ken Rockwell write up about the D40's, and he said: "The D40 tends to overexpose, so I leave it set to -0.7 exposure compensation." I had adjusted the exposure compensation while trying to take some photos recently and I think I am now getting underexposed shots. Also, I am still trying to get the WB setting configured.

Be careful with anything you read on Ken Rockwell's site. Whether the D40 tends to overexpose or not is pretty irrelevant to what you should set your exposure compensation to. It will depend on the scene and what the exposure for that scene might need to be. Setting it to -0.7 might be a good general rule of thumb, but you should still check your exposure and histogram (when possible, of course) to avoid over or under exposing a scene.

A general note about Ken's site. Take everything he says with a grain of salt. He even mentions something along those lines somewhere in his site. There is certainly some good info there, but there is also a lot of bias and opinion that I believe has been detrimental to many newer photographers looking for answers. My suggestion when reading his site is to find another source to backup anything he says and to learn how to discern between facts and opinions.

 

[fjrabon]

Am I wrong in trying to obtain better exposure initially, rather than adjusting it later? Or am I thoroughly confused?

I think the mistake a lot of people make is having this 'one or the other' type of view of taking pictures and PP. Of course better source images are always better. That's not the point. The point is that PP is an additional tool to use. In fact, I've learned almost as much about photography from post processing as I have from actually taking pictures. Playing around with your post processing can teach you how to spot the correct white balance by eye, when you can't use a grey card. Post processing teaches you how to spot a picture that needs more contrast. It helps you think about composition more. that's all outside of the actual enhancing your pictures part.

Another issue with post processing, is sometimes you 'shoot to the processing'. What I mean by that is this, occasionally you'll see a shot that has a wide dynamic range (that is, really bright areas and really dark areas). You can either shoot the shot for HDR, which is post processing, or you can shoot the image purposefully underexposed, knowing that you can fairly easily brighten dark areas in post processing, but when part of the image is clipped out highlight wise, that is gone forever. DSLR's are better able to preserve information on dark areas of the picture than bright areas.

It's nice to perfectly nail the shot in the camera, or come close, but what you will realize is that certain aspects have to be right in the camera, and certain aspects can be fixed or enhanced if need be. If possible, you want to avoid clipped out highlights as much as possible. Can't fix those, when the information is clipped out on the white end, it's gone. Correct DOF is difficult to fix in post processing, if it's possible at all. You can't 'zoom out' in post processing, but you can always 'zoom in' by cropping. the correct angle can't be fixed inpost processing.

Your list of priorities when taking a shot should be something like this:

1) What's my subject, what do I want to come across in this picture?
2) Is this the angle I want to shoot at? Do I want to be lower, higher, more to the left or right? Should I move forward or back?
3) What depth of field do I want for this picture? (that is how close do I want to be to the subject, how close do I want the background and what aperture do I want to use?)
4) Is anything important clipped out highlight wise? If so, then I need to shoot this with a lower exposure.
5) Am I getting noise with the ISO and shutter speed combo I'm using?
6) Is it at least in the ballpark contrast and saturation wise?
7) White balance close?

As you can see, the things you'd really fix the most in post processing should be the last two of your concerns. There's a lot to consider when making a picture, worry about the things you can't fix in post processing first and foremost. If they're messed up, the picture is wrong. If the white balance is off, eh, it's nice when it's right int eh camera, but it's perfectly easily fixable when you shoot in RAW.

 

[Proteus617]

Megan's point was, until you start doing post processing on your pictures, you might as well save the space and processing time and shoot JPEG Fine.

This is not good advice. The original poster has no idea where her skill-set will be a year from now.

 

[Gaerek]

This is not good advice. The original poster has no idea where her skill-set will be a year from now.

I just want to second this. Unless you have serious storage issues, there's absolutely no reason not to shoot RAW. If you're afraid to do anything at all with RAW right now, then shoot JPEG + RAW, store the RAW files and use the JPEGs. I've gone back to old photos many times in the past and I'm glad I started shooting RAW before I was even doing a lot of processing. As your skill set develops, you'll be able to go back to your older photos and do a lot more with them.

Again, if storage is an issue or you don't ever plan to PP, go ahead and shoot JPEG. Otherwise there's no reason not to shoot RAW.

 

[KmH]

Your photo has an orange color cast because your camera white balance was set to sunlight, but the scene was lit by an incandescent light source, not sunlight.

The baby's eye sockets are dark (raccoon eyes), and his cheeks are bright because the light source was high.

The camera should have been rotated 90° to the vertical (portrait) framing orientation.

In your profile, please choose an edit preference, either - My Photos Are OK to Edit or My Photos Are NOT OK to Edit.

 

[AntwanRTTG]

I just want to second this. Unless you have serious storage issues, there's absolutely no reason not to shoot RAW. If you're afraid to do anything at all with RAW right now, then shoot JPEG + RAW, store the RAW files and use the JPEGs. I've gone back to old photos many times in the past and I'm glad I started shooting RAW before I was even doing a lot of processing. As your skill set develops, you'll be able to go back to your older photos and do a lot more with them.

Again, if storage is an issue or you don't ever plan to PP, go ahead and shoot JPEG. Otherwise there's no reason not to shoot RAW.

I did not mention this, but storage is not an issue and is another reason that I shoot RAW. The cost of memory does not concern me, so I have plenty of it. I currently have 3 TB dedicated to my camera backup. And I don't/won't shoot enough to fill that for quite a while.