Some Landscapes... First Post, C & C Welcome

[aprhockey]

I'm just getting into photography. I Don't know if these are technically good. They are all straight from the camera since I really don't know how to edit photos / don't have any software.
Be harsh if you want to.
Thanks in advance

1.

2.

3.

4.

 

[peanut170]

I think they ok, just need to crop out a little of the water in front. like 4 the best, only cause u caught the ducks, even though they look oof, but not feeling 2 at all.

 

[SecondShot]

#1 I like it - horizon looks straight to my naked eye. I kinda like how the yellow hue takes over the whole picture. Digging the rays of light. I would crop out the tree in the far left - i think it's distracting.

#2 not feeling at all. When you took this, what were you trying to capture?

#3 I think it's ok. Nice reflections, but I think it's a little disorienting - at least to me. Lack of light makes it hard to focus the eye on exactly what you're looking at. Sky is nice.

#4 Very pretty - sets a mood like #1 does. I don't see much of anything i'd suggest.

 

[dak1b]

i like #3.

love reflections.

 

[deekim]

4 is my favorite, seems like these are all underexposed?

 

[Petraio Prime]

I would not term these 'landscapes'.

 

[aprhockey]

I wasn't sure if they were really landscapes or not, but couldn't think of anything else to call them.
I'm always afraid to overexpose. I've thought that pictures that are a bit underexposed always look better than a picture with a couple hot spots.
With #2, I guess I was trying to capture the ominous look of the clouds and maybe the feeling of being alone with a random makeshift soccer goal.
I'll try to get out there and shoot more
Thanks for the comments
P.S. #4 is my computer's background for now and everyday I get more annoyed that I didn't have the ducks in focus

 

[Morpheuss]

those are some beautiful photos

 

[Petraio Prime]

I wasn't sure if they were really landscapes or not, but couldn't think of anything else to call them.

"Outdoor scenes" would be more accurate.

 

[Idahophoto]

There not bad. Like most I like 4 the best also keep in mind the rule of thirds.

Photo 1) what did you have your white balance set to? I'm thinking not daylight which is what is probably best here. I think it would definitely improve the color cast. Get your camera off Auto WB it sucks! This is something I have just started forcing myself with as well so don't take it the wrong way. Also add more sky, it is far more interesting than the water so in rule of third try 1 third water 2 thirds sky and get the colors to pop.

Photo 2) To be honest seems pointless. Again, I'm not trying to be mean but I really don't know the subject and in a photograph that should always be obvious. Thing is, I don't think there can be one here just a dead field with what I'm guessing is a broken swing. Not even sure what it is.

Photo 3) This has potential! I would try darkening the sky a bit. Try downloading a image editing program. PS has like 30 day trials and use the magic wand to grab the sky. Hold down the shift key as you take more and more pieces of it then go int your adjustments. to make the appropriate changes. I'm still a noob myself so maybe others can offer more help here than myself but hope that help a bit for now. Also again I would probably go with one third water two thirds sky but a 50/50 may not be bad in this case either. I really don't know.

Photo 4) This is actually a real nice shot, just the color seems to be a bit off again I think probably a white balance issue. if you shot these in Raw this could be a easy fix then.Your sky and ground composure does not bother me here and looks real good to me on this one and the ducks in the water with the golden color really grabs me. Sky seems a bit overexposed. Yeah where the sun is can be tricky and I would probably black out the little gaps along the... are they house windows? I can't tell. but otherwise this is a very strong shot and I think is easily your best one of the 4.

Overall I think your off to a great start. Check out some free tutorials online Adobe has some real good ones. If your willing to lay down a few bucks I would strongly recommend Jim Zuckmands DVD [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Be-Photoshop-Guru-Unlocking-Photoshops/dp/B001T5EM6I/ref=cm_cr-mr-title"]Amazon.com: Be a Photoshop Guru - Unlocking the Hidden Genius Behind Photoshop's Tools: Jim Zuckerman, Gregory McKean:…[/ame] its like 27 bucks now and has helped me a lot in learning photoshop. Everything is shown in a very simple manner. And I have learned a great deal from it. I think there is also a segment from it on youtube.com which you can check out if you want. Its really fairly easy once shown just seems real hard when you are reading it lol. Was my case in photography school anyways. Grats on the new camera and hope to see more stuff soon.

 

[LarryD]

Nothing wrong the composition... good eye..

Except for #3, which is high contrast and so the sky is almost blown (it is overexposed here), all of them are underexposed and so detail is lost...

Also, they are all soft, so need some sharpening..

 

[aprhockey]

Thanks Morpheuss

IdahoPhoto: For the first picture, I'm not sure what the white balance was on... I think it was probably set to 'cloudy'. Definitely not auto though. I think I'm going to try to learn Gimp since its free. If I shoot in RAW do I need any special software to be able to see the pictures on my computer? Thanks for all the advice, I'll work on white balance and try to learn some photo editing.

LarryD: How could I decrease the contrast on the camera? Would 'Active D-lighting' help at all for #3? Also, I just want to make sure, by soft you mean out of focus correct?

 

[Idahophoto]

Thanks Morpheuss

IdahoPhoto: For the first picture, I'm not sure what the white balance was on... I think it was probably set to 'cloudy'. Definitely not auto though. I think I'm going to try to learn Gimp since its free. If I shoot in RAW do I need any special software to be able to see the pictures on my computer? Thanks for all the advice, I'll work on white balance and try to learn some photo editing.

LarryD: How could I decrease the contrast on the camera? Would 'Active D-lighting' help at all for #3? Also, I just want to make sure, by soft you mean out of focus correct?

For sunset sunrise try setting your WB to Sunny. It should help add soft golden colors to your photos. WB is actually real easy once you use it a few times and you will get much better results if you set it yourself than letting the camera decide.

As for the Raw files most likely you will need a program to open them. I am not sure what camera you are using but Nikon and Canon both should have one for free to download if they did not include it with your camera. If you went with another brand check on there website they may have one as well.

 

[D-B-J]

i feel like both one and four are just serene sunsets and nicely captured. I would go out to the place and try an hdr at sunset, seeing as how the dynamic range could not all be caught in one shot.

 

[OrionsByte]

If I shoot in RAW do I need any special software to be able to see the pictures on my computer? Thanks for all the advice, I'll work on white balance and try to learn some photo editing.

With RAW files you won't be able to see a preview in Windows (unless you find some software to take care of that for you), but there are lots of programs out there that can open them and mess with them.

If you try GIMP, you could try out UFRaw, which is a plugin for GIMP that allows conversion from RAW all within GIMP. Personally, I've been using a program called Raw Therapee (I'm using version 2.4 since version 3 is still in alpha), and I really like it. It's an extra step to convert it in that program before doing additional work in something else, but it's easy to use and pretty powerful.

If your camera has the option, you might try shooting in RAW+JPG, which would give you one of each for every shot. That way you can see what they look like fairly quickly without having to dive in to a RAW processing program just to look at them. Eventually, if you're anything like me, you'll get to the point where anything worth sharing is going to end up going through the RAW software anyways, and you'll start finding the JPGs cumbersome - and at that point you can just shoot RAW and not have any problems with that.

I have Picasa installed on my system, and it previews the RAW files from my D70 just fine, so that's what I usually use to browse through my shots after they're uploaded. Once I have an idea of what my favorites are, I'll go in to Raw Therapee to play with the settings and dump a JPG out. If necessary I'll use GIMP or Paint Shop Pro X3 to do some additional work.

I used to think RAW files were a pain but once I started forcing myself to use them, I'm surprised I was ever happy with a SOOC JPG.