Some of my photos from my local wildlife park.

[Valvaren]

Hi guys, just for starters none of my photos are edited in anyway and I personally don't edit (its just something I don't like doing) on that note my knowledge of cameras and how they work is very very limited so I might not totally understand what you mean when you say somethings but I will try my best. I also might ask if there is anyway I can help my technique that doesn't involve editing because I wont edit my photos, sorry in advance as I know that is the main way to improve on a photo. I'm looking to further my skill to improve my photos naturally using the strengths of the camera and the environment around me at the time instead of relying on PP.

What I currently use is a Nikon P500 Coolpix and a good portion of these photos are taken from a great distance hence why they aren't very crisp. I just hope you enjoy them to some degree.

1.

2.

3. Love this photo, hate the lines from the cage but I have to deal since I don't have access to wild foxes

4. Same as 3

5.

6.

7. Bars again but he was exceptionally fast so I'm glad this turned out as well as it did

8.

 

[MissCream]

Are these from the Shubie wildlife park?

 

[o hey tyler]

Well since you are violently opposed to post processing, you can give the unedited files to a friend and they could process them.




Seriously though, if you are going to want the full potential out of a digital image, post processing is going to be a necessity. Digital files need sharpening, sometimes white balance corrections, and other things. These are not tough to learn to do. You're literally selling your photos short if you don't process them, even minimally.

Might I ask why you are so opposed to post processing?

 

[Valvaren]

I'm not violently against it and its not that I don't want to learn how I just don't want to do it period. I have nothing against others doing it and am full aware my photos will never compete but I don't take photos to put them in a magazine I take photos to capture images and memories I want to keep and share. I feel any photo can be beautiful regardless of how much 'make up' you put on it and that is what I want out of my images to be as beautiful as they can be naturally.

I'm looking for advice on how to frame a picture, how to use my position of the position of my subject to bring out the best without editing. If you don't want to comment on my pictures for what they are then don't I'm not asking you to. What I want to is further my skill with my camera and my skill as a photographer.

If everyone here is against someone who is against PP then I wont remain that's fine, i'm not here to convert anyone or anything like that I just want to share my pictures for what they are and like I said learn how to improve them in the ways I can without using a program.

 

[bazooka]

The fact is these images have already been edited, but they were done so by your camera instead of you. Most P&S camera's don't give you the option to shoot in RAW so you just have to work with what decisions the camera makes in your place. In my opinion, if you're using a P&S, you'll do well enough to let the camera process them for you and not worry about doing anything additional. Editing jpgs and tiffs is not ideal. But to state that you won't "edit" your photos because of some ethical reason is illogical. If NO processing is done to the image and it's converted straight to jpg, it's not going to look how the scene depicted it. Photograph's are not honest.

 

[bazooka]

I'm not violently against it and its not that I don't want to learn how I just don't want to do it period. I have nothing against others doing it and am full aware my photos will never compete but I don't take photos to put them in a magazine I take photos to capture images and memories I want to keep and share. I feel any photo can be beautiful regardless of how much 'make up' you put on it and that is what I want out of my images to be as beautiful as they can be naturally.

I'm looking for advice on how to frame a picture, how to use my position of the position of my subject to bring out the best without editing. If you don't want to comment on my pictures for what they are then don't I'm not asking you to. What I want to is further my skill with my camera and my skill as a photographer.

If everyone here is against someone who is against PP then I wont remain that's fine, i'm not here to convert anyone or anything like that I just want to share my pictures for what they are and like I said learn how to improve them in the ways I can without using a program.

My above post was in response to your OP.

It's great that you want to focus on composition and camera techniques. You're SOOC (straight out of camera) shots SHOULD be beatiful and compositionally pleasing. But I think what you're stating comes from a misunderstanding of how a digital sensor works. The camera simply cannot capture the colors, sharpenss, saturation, contrast, etc.. of many (most, or perhaps even all) scenes the way we see them with the eye. Photo modification has been necessary every since the first dark room.

If you want to be a photography purist (which I prefer), then you absolutely must process your images (or allow the camera to do so as you are doing), or the simple act of capturing the photograph won't replicate what you saw.

With respect to your photos, I don't have much time left to post full C&C, but #1, #6, and #7 aren't too bad considering your equipment. They're a bit soft and lacking contrast.... but you won't adjust that so no need for me to bring it up. Overall the white balance seems blue on many of these except for #3 which looks good. But again, the editing thing... your camera chose poorly but you don't want to fix the mistake the camera made.

I think #7 was a good capture, but like you said, the bars are visible. Also, there is a bit of motion blur. It looks like camera shake to me. I would crop it a bit tighter... crap, there's that editing thing again.

 

[bazooka]

Ok, now that we got the processing question out of the way via PM, let the critique commence...

Hi guys, just for starters none of my photos are edited in anyway and I personally don't edit (its just something I don't like doing) on that note my knowledge of cameras and how they work is very very limited so I might not totally understand what you mean when you say somethings but I will try my best. I also might ask if there is anyway I can help my technique that doesn't involve editing because I wont edit my photos, sorry in advance as I know that is the main way to improve on a photo. I'm looking to further my skill to improve my photos naturally using the strengths of the camera and the environment around me at the time instead of relying on PP.

What I currently use is a Nikon P500 Coolpix and a good portion of these photos are taken from a great distance hence why they aren't very crisp. I just hope you enjoy them to some degree.

1.

Technically, I can only knock this one for the clipped moose butt. If you're going to shoot a full body, it's best to shoot a full body and not clip ANY part of it. If you do, it looks like an accident. If it looks like an accident, it appears you didn't put much thought into it.

The white balance is a little on the blue side, but within an acceptable range (acceptable to me anyway). I would warm it up a bit if it were me.

Also, there is a branch in the top left that is out of focus. It is the only thing in the image that is out of focus which makes it seem out of place to me. I'm not against having items in the foreground out of focus that frame the subject, but this branch stands alone and doesn't contribute.

I think the greatest issue with the image is the brightness of the grass in front of the moose. It's so bright, it's really taking away attention from where you want it. Remember that bright areas of a photograph attract attention. Many times (not always) you want the subject to have the highest tonal value in the image. This will require some "burning", but I think it will make the image more of what your impression of the scene was. It will make a strong photograph. I did some modifications and will post if you permit me to. You currently have your profile set to "Do not edit my photos".


2.

For me, nature photography is all about the eyes. Without the eyes, you do not have a strong image (unless you are shooting a flock of animals like zebras or birds, then it's more about texture or overwhelming quantity). With a single animal "portrait", I can't imagine (perhaps a weakness on my part) an image that would be successful without seeing eyes. Here is a ball of fur. Also, the upward facing steps are overexposed (you can tell by the large patches of white that hold no detail).


3. Love this photo, hate the lines from the cage but I have to deal since I don't have access to wild foxes

I can see why you like this one. Notice the exposure level of the fox in relation to the foreground and background. This causes the subject to "pop". Also, the stark color contrast (green on orange, competing colors) adds to this. It gives the image energy. However, the eye is not clear. It is dark and lifeless. Make sure you capture those eyes well! You might google the term "catchlights". It may help you to see the importance of eyes.


4. Same as 3

Here you have run into a technical issue that will happen time and time again, especially when you work in automatic modes. The camera's meter averages the scene (unless you are using a more local metering mode) and expects it to be "18% gray". Google this to see what it looks like. Basically it's an average scene. However, when you have a scene predominately light like snow or a white fox surrounded by white gravel, the meter will underexpose it because it assumes it's supposed to be 18% gray, and not something much higher. You need to add exposure compensation for predominately white scenes, and on the other hand, you need to subratct exposure compensation for predominately dark scenes (coal, black sand, shooting the moon at night). How much compensation depends on the scene, but start with one "f-stop". Google is your friend.

You have the same butt-ampuation problem as in #1, only worse. I bet you wanted to get closer but you were at the limit of your zoom. If so, it's ok to crop tighter in post. You will lose pixels, but if it improves the composition, I think that's better.

So you proved me wrong already and have shown me that a sleeping animal is one situation where seeing the actual eyes is not important. However, we can see that he is sleeping so that IS important.

5.

Similar to the red fox in #3 but a bit underexposed. The eyes are lifeless because of the strong downward direction of the light. On humans, this would be referred to as "racoon eyes" and is generally undesireable. You could use your flash to get some light reflection but you would also risk red/green eye. This is fixable in post and I think it would be worth it if you could get some of that deep yellow color of the irises. Or you could wait until the cat looks up. Or you could wait until the light direction changes (if ever... it may not depending on the enclosure). Unfortunately at a zoo, you're often limited to what you can do.

I admire your careful composition to include the entire front leg to the elbow, but I think the image would be stronger if you shot it vertically and went in tight on the head and paws. That's where the interest is.

You got some detail in the eye which helps this image along. Unfortunately again you clipped the paws and tail. I think the weakest aspect of the image is that he's obviously in a cage. Furthermore, the wood is quite bright and fights for attention.

This is probably the best composition of the set. The entire animal is there and is naturally framed by it's home. You got catchlights in the eyes from the sky overhead which gives the animal some life. The white balance is a bit blue (like most of the other images) and the image is very soft. Partly because of the fence, but mostly because you were shooting at 1/20 of a second. You have to really be stable when shooting that slow. It can be done if you're leaning against something or are sitting or lying down.




(Eagle Below, I can't get the cursor below it for some reason)
It seems a bit underexposed although I would expect this scene to tend to overexpose because of all the dark. You have an orphaned tail feather in top right.

You caught an eagle with a nice little catchlight which is the strength in this image. The major weakness to me is the composition. You basically cut the bird in half. With this shot, I think only two crops would have worked. Either very tight on the hooded area, or full body. I would have shot this vertically and full body.

The background isn't appearling... it looks like bird feather parts stuck in a cage. You're tech limited here. With an SLR you could probably get the background more out of focus. You could do this with editing, but personally, on this shot, I wouldn't bother with it.

 

[Valvaren]

Honestly you've pointed out things neither I nor anyone else have ever pointed out especially the tail feathers in the eagle picture.

I've read everything you've said and I honestly can't thank you enough, you've put everything in perspective and I've got a lot think about and things I will definitely keep in mind for the future, things I never thought of like the eye lights and most of the cutting off of body parts wasn't intentional like in the raccoon picture it was more me due to limited space to work around the cage and the animals being flighty so I wanted to capture them before them running off, but it is something I will watch for from now on.

I haven't really experimented with different settings on my camera as my Nikon is the first 'high tech' camera I've own, everything else has been very basic and just included a macro setting and things like sepia etc etc.

I'm hoping to learn more about what certain things do and how to work them to my advantage. I was playing around with my Nikon photo editor and tried out a few things, its really surprising how washed out things actually look and how soft and fuzzy they are. I plan on learning photoshop (that was something I never thought I would say) and maybe after I play around with somethings I'll repost them. Also Bazooka you can edit anything you want I would love something to go by and to see what you would do with it, do I have to change the setting to allow you?

I'm really sorry to everyone for coming off so stubborn, as I explained to Bazooka in Pm I was very jaded towards editing due to the overwhelming amount of people I know who take pictures and people i've met on other forums who seem to edit to the extreme to the point of nothing in the photo being real and I just wanted to shut it all out.

I can't thank you enough Bazooka for taking the time to explain things and make me realize that to edit is not what I thought it was, i'm very excited to start learning more about my camera and to get out there and take pictures for you guys

I hope I covered everything I wanted to..

p.s I've noticed a lot of blue undertones in my photo that I've taken in all different lights and areas, is there anything I can do it fix that at all?

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

p.s I've noticed a lot of blue undertones in my photo that I've taken in all different lights and areas, is there anything I can do it fix that at all?

Yes.

 

[Valvaren]

p.s I've noticed a lot of blue undertones in my photo that I've taken in all different lights and areas, is there anything I can do it fix that at all?

Yes.

Such as? I don't understand why it happens so I don't know how I would know how to fix it. I never really noticed it until I started editing the color of my photos a bit.