The first of the pictures I want to take!

[Andreal]

So shortly after I bought my camera and decided to get into photography I hit exam period and wasnt really able to get out and take photos in landscapes and nature which is what I really wanna do. Well exams are over and last week I managed to get out there!

Here are some of the photos I took, would really appreciate some C&C, I know there are alot of things I still need to learn to do better, focusing for one I noticed is a bit of a problem on a few of these pictures when blow up a bit bigger.

I think I should buy some sort of monitor calibrator too, on the monitor I edited these on they looked as good as I could make them, but when I viewed them on my other monitor they looked a little dull, I guess I will just have to wait and see how they look to you!

There is not much I can do in photoshop (read next to nothing) but in a couple of these I did one or two things in Camera RAW.


The first! I overexposed the sky a bit, tried to correct by bringing down the highlights in RAW, wasn't too successful.

I loved the layers of this waterfall, when blown up some of the edges look almost pixelated...im not sure if this is a focusing issue or issue with my monitor but was very strange.

Another part of the waterfall, blew out the top, but I wanted to get the top in to give the picture a sence of size/positioning.

Something about this log just seemed cool to me...damn that piece of foliage hanging down on the right!

Once again, anything people can say to help me along my way will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Christina]

m always a big fan of waterfalls in b&w, but thats just me. I see what your saying about the dullness. are you using any photo editing program, or staying pretty natural?

 

[Garbz]

I suggest invest in a small tripod and a polariser. These will make nature images pop a bit more. Your monitor appears fine. The images look tonally ok here.

 

[Andreal]

Thanks for the responces! I already use a tripod, so I dunno what I can do to improve that . And a polariser you say, I will look into getting one asap , I notice there are 2 kinds though, a regular polariser and a circular polariser, any preference?

Christina, I will have to have a play around with b&w, sounds cool , and these are mostly natural, unedited, I might go pump up the saturatin a bit and see what results .

Thanks for the comments so far guys!

 

[sabbath999]

circular polarizer is what you want.

 

[Andreal]

Right cool , Im pretty keen to go back to these ranges and go down some of the different trails, will be sure to have one with me before I set out this time .

Also, this is one of the pictures above with my attempt to add more "pop". Upped the contrast (Which worked wonders) and added a little saturation.

 

[Garbz]

Just mentioned the tripod because the polariser will give you a 1-2 stop lighting hit when you mount it so if you didn't have one before you may need it now.

 

[JIP]

I don't know if it is my montor but I think you need to ply with the levels a little. Most of your images look just a little washed out.

 

[Andreal]

I don't know if it is my montor but I think you need to ply with the levels a little. Most of your images look just a little washed out.

Sorry if this is a irritatingly simple question, but what exactly do you mean by "washed out" I think I get the general idea of what you mean, but don't understand exactly.

I have never used levels before, I just loaded them into photoshop and had no idea how to use them so im off to find a tutorial

Thanks for the help!

 

[julie32]

what camera settings did you use in the waterfall shots? Thanks. I think the shots are great!

 

[Andreal]

what camera settings did you use in the waterfall shots? Thanks. I think the shots are great!

Heh I don't even remember, but Opanda is telling me I used a 3 second shutter speed with apeture F22. I wanted a deep DOF which is why I set the apeture up so high (maybe too high?), anyway, I wanted it high enough to get a "silky" look and I got that so I cant complain

 

[ANDS!]

You dont need to go down to 22 to get that kind of DOF. f/8-11 wouldve been cool.

This is my attempt at your waterfalls with PS:

Levels is good to get into to start playing around and seeing what it does, but curves is a much better tool to use to use to add contrast, as well as do color corrections on a photo.

Also quick question - did you use flash on any of these?

 

[Andreal]

I only have the built in flash and I tend not to use it if I can help it because I had some bad experiences with ugly reflections But sometimes I can see that fill flash will be desperatly needed and so will use the flash, I do not believe that any of those posted had the flash used, but I think I have versions of them where the flash fired.

That edit looks really awesome! I love the definition it adds to the photo, thanks very much!

 

[kundalini]

Thanks for the update Andreal. I love waterfalls and was gonna ask what your settings were. The contrast the ANDS! put on it with PS really makes it pop. KUDOZ ANDZ!. The silkyness of the falls is fantastic.

Makes me wonder if PS is the way to go for post processing

Cheers......

 

[glaston]

Makes me wonder if PS is the way to go for post processing

Huh?? What's to wonder about?
If you post process your images, Photoshop is the only way to go.
The only consideration is price.
Photoshop is a bit pricey for some and if you don't do alot of post processing the cost outweighs the need.
What do you currently use?


Andreal, google 'color corrections in photoshop'.
That's basically what levels and curves are all about.
With curves you basically remap the highlight and shadow points to more reasonable values. If done right, this gets rid of the dullnes in the image.
Once you get the hang of it, it makes a HUGE difference in the appearance of your images.
However, before doing that you should get your camera setup properly.
You shouldn't be getting dull and white washed images out of the camera at all.
Curves and levels are more effective if you're getting the best looking images possible straight from the camera.
Levels and curves only have the data sent from the camera to work with.
When you have dull or washed out images it reduces the amount of color information.
In that case, levels and curves will help make the image look better but they aren't magic. So you don't want to rely on using them in order to make your images pop more.
Try to shoot for getting images from the camera that don't need adjustments.
Then use adjustments to make an already great image look even greater.
One way is to manually meter your shots. So that the image you end up with is the image that you planned for before squeezing off the shot.

Generally speaking, the pixel values of your image shouldn't be a surprise to you.
You should have a good idea of your dark and light points based on what you exposed for.
This makes everything easier when you want to color correct too.
Because you already know what you want your target points to be, and since you metered the shot you have an idea what the current values are and how much difference there is between them and your targets.

Since you're new to levels, the rule of thumb is to NEVER use levels in RGB mode.
You adjust the levels and curves individually in each color channel.