Tahquamenon Falls State Park; Landscape project

[jcdeboever]

Took a drive on Friday with the wife. I have been reading up on landscape photography and decided to take a stab at it. Probably didn't make the best choice of lens, AF 70-300mm f4.5-6G. I wanted to test it out on the D7200 and it is definately a different color renderur. I actually had fun using it. I didn't shoot in RAW either, testing out the JPEG fine quality. My goal was composition, no cropping in post, little to no post. I didn't have to crop any of these, had to pull down the highlights on whites, but pretty much it. Overcast day, mostly. I am open for suggestions for improvement.

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[ZombiesniperJr]

Nice set

 

[jcdeboever]

Nice set

Thanks Logan.

 

[WesternGuy]

Pretty nice stab . My first suggestion for improvement would be to shoot raw - always, but then you just knew that was coming, didn't you . It gives you many more degrees of freedom in your post processing, regardless of what else you may be trying to do.

I can't comment on the Nikon gear (I shoot with Canon), but the results seem to suggest that the combo is a good start for landscape. It would be nice to know what the technical aspects of each image was - exposure, aperture, speed, etc., but that may just be me as I am a little more oriented to the techie stuff than some. I ask, because it is often a bit difficult to provide "good" feedback without knowing the details of how an image was captured.

Having said that, my comments are:

1. I like this image from a compositional perspective. For me it is a little underexposed maybe by as much as one stop. You may be able to correct this in post, but then you run the risk of blowing out the water, so you may want to do some sort of selective dodging and burning to bring out the colours of the trees and other vegetation while not blowing out the waterfall.

2. Comments are much the same as for #1. The vegetation in the foreground covers up the "boiling" water of the falls and I am not sure that is something I would have done. The exposure of the vegetation in this one is much better than in #1, but could probably use a bit more "brightening up" as the colours here have great potential. Don't forget, that even though your main subject may be the waterfalls, the surrounding "countryside" is also an important component of the image. I would have also cloned out the picnic bench on the right middle side of the image. It is a distraction and grabs the viewer's eye away from the main subject.

3. I like this one - a lot. The colours are great although they could be a bit "brighter". The S-curve of the pathway carries the viewer's eye through the image very nicely. The bench provides a very nice touch and is a good place for the viewer's eye to pause and explore the image as they follow the path through the image.

Hope this helps.

WesternGuy

 

[jcdeboever]

Pretty nice stab . My first suggestion for improvement would be to shoot raw - always, but then you just knew that was coming, didn't you . It gives you many more degrees of freedom in your post processing, regardless of what else you may be trying to do.

I can't comment on the Nikon gear (I shoot with Canon), but the results seem to suggest that the combo is a good start for landscape. It would be nice to know what the technical aspects of each image was - exposure, aperture, speed, etc., but that may just be me as I am a little more oriented to the techie stuff than some. I ask, because it is often a bit difficult to provide "good" feedback without knowing the details of how an image was captured.

Having said that, my comments are:

1. I like this image from a compositional perspective. For me it is a little underexposed maybe by as much as one stop. You may be able to correct this in post, but then you run the risk of blowing out the water, so you may want to do some sort of selective dodging and burning to bring out the colours of the trees and other vegetation while not blowing out the waterfall.

2. Comments are much the same as for #1. The vegetation in the foreground covers up the "boiling" water of the falls and I am not sure that is something I would have done. The exposure of the vegetation in this one is much better than in #1, but could probably use a bit more "brightening up" as the colours here have great potential. Don't forget, that even though your main subject may be the waterfalls, the surrounding "countryside" is also an important component of the image. I would have also cloned out the picnic bench on the right middle side of the image. It is a distraction and grabs the viewer's eye away from the main subject.

3. I like this one - a lot. The colours are great although they could be a bit "brighter". The S-curve of the pathway carries the viewer's eye through the image very nicely. The bench provides a very nice touch and is a good place for the viewer's eye to pause and explore the image as they follow the path through the image.

Hope this helps.

WesternGuy

Thanks. Good tips, just what I was looking for. I would normally do the images in raw, looking back I should have shot in raw + jpeg fine. The xif data should be there. I had a monopod and not a tripod and the lens has no vibration control. If I did a do over, tripod and remote would be used. Thanks for the direction, appreciate it.