First Photo Post

[blakemcguire]

Olympus E-520, Zuiko 14-42 F3.5-5.6
Shutter: 1/250s
Aperture: F/5.6
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 42mm

Two things I'm wondering about this one, do the ducks in the lower right stand out enough against the reflections and the bridge, and are the colours/contrast alright? I think a colour calibrator would be a good investment, but I'm a university student, so money is tight!

[Ricco]

Blake - to me, you can make out the ducks but there is no question that the primary focus of this image is the bridge. It is much brighter and draws the eye.

Which is great if that was your intention.

[epmi314]

Blake it is a good start to be sure. I am having a tough time locating a focal point. It should be the bridge and the ducks can certainly be omitted. The exposure on the bridge looks fair but overall I would say the image is a tick underexposed. Do you have any data on the settings or info on the PP efforts?

[blakemcguire]

Blake it is a good start to be sure. I am having a tough time locating a focal point. It should be the bridge and the ducks can certainly be omitted. The exposure on the bridge looks fair but overall I would say the image is a tick underexposed. Do you have any data on the settings or info on the PP efforts?

I'd say bringing out the focus is my weak point. I liked how the ducks were in line with the reflection of the bridge, but the bridge itself kind of imposed itself in the picture.

I'm not sure what you mean. I used UFraw and gimp to process it.

[MrB]

Blake, I suspect that you think the answer to each of your questions is no, and I agree although the sky and the bridge platform (the orange structure) need only very slight or no adjustment. If you want to keep the ducks, then firstly it might help if the water at bottom was reduced by making a square crop of the picture, to give the illusion of the birds being closer to the viewer. Secondly, selectively raising the brightness levels of the river and background (town?) areas will not only make the ducks more visible but also, in my opinion, more effectively show the bridge in the context of its surroundings. If the picture were mine, I would lose the ducks with a 7:5 crop ratio, to concentrate on the striking bridge and its reflection. But, as always, it all depends on what image you saw at the time and want to create now.

Philip

[rob marshall]

Blake

It's quite a good scene, but the composition looks wrong to me.You have too much attention on the water, and the bridge looks cramped. The lamp posts on the bridge are cut off. Also, you are very underexposed on the middle area of the shot, which is where all the nice detail is. I think you needed an ND grad filter here (at a slight angle to match the line of the bridge) That would have darkened the sky and made that middle area brighter. I tried an edit to show what I mean, if that's OK. My sky is a bit rough as I had to use 'content aware fill in CS5.

Original

edit

[blakemcguire]

Definitely something to think about there!

How about this? I tried out selectively darkening the sky, and selective sharpening on the ducks

[Donald]

That is just a so much better image. It's now a well composed image in which a bridge is the main feature, but which is really lifted by having the ducks on the water

[Ryogenetic]

If you still have the original, you could edit it so you get this:


This keeps the Ducks and the Bridge, but not making the Bridge the focal piece. I can talk you through the process if you like.

Ryo

[blakemcguire]

Nah, that's alright. I like the way it turned out. But let me guess, isolate the ducks, mirror the bridge down, set the bridge as an overlay, set opacity, and motion blur?

[Ryogenetic]

You got the technique, perhaps in another order, but all the major elements. No offense intended by my edit. From reading your OP it is the impression of what I thought you were trying to capture.

Ryo

[blakemcguire]

I see nothing offensive

I was a little indecisive about what I wanted from the photo.

[bleys]

Nice to see another resident of the Fraser Valley on these boards. Welcome to Cambridge in Colour!

[blakemcguire]

Did I mention it somewhere or did you recognize the bridge? :3