Shot in The Dark ( Figuratively)

[bander]

Hello everybody,

I've read somewhere in CiC that your worst photos are your first 1000 photos. I have added another zero in my case

I have been trying with post-processing for a while now ( got confused on where to set the limit between "cleaning the photo" and creating a whole new image which is, to me, not real photography)

Anyway, i have these photos for your c&c and please be brutal as i am emotionally detached from my photos

cheers

[Geoff F]

These are all really difficult subjects, Bander.

#1 has come out very well considering the extreme settings. F29 and Iso 6400. The leaves are rather dark but what can you do with white flowers in those conditions! You have retained a fair bit of detail in those dark leaves.

#2 seems to be neither one thing nor the other to me. The sky isn't totally dark which would produce a nice star scene and you have a potentially interesting horizon line. I think I would concentrate more on that skyline and crop a little tighter so the stars become a background instead of attempting to be the main area of attention but not quite making it work successfully.

#3 has quite a bit of dark and somewhat uninteresting foreground. I was thinking about a slightly tighter crop of the bottom and right side but I'm uncertain.

Too much would lose the impact created by the height of the hill and I wouldn't want to lose that cloud from the top right corner. Possibly, I may try going a little bit extreme and 'moving' that patch of cloud slightly to the left so it was retained after a slight crop. I think the sky is sufficiently uniform for that to happen.

But it might be more editing than you are happy with.

#4 is OK but I would probably crop a little tighter just to reduce the area of slightly distracting background.

However, as I said, these were very difficult scenes and you have done well with them. My suggestions are merely possible alternatives and not essential edits.

[bander]

Thanks Geoff for your comments.

That mountain looked really amazing ( black volcanic rock with the summit of totally different rock) but it i wasn't sure of the best angle and camera settings to capture the shape and contrasting colors.

[Geoff F]

I was thinking of something roughly like this for the mountain.



Just an idea.

[Mark von Kanel]

Hi Bander, Geoof has said it all about the photos but id i thought id add my bit of bad news..... the quote your referring to is actually 10,000 photos not a thousand and is attributable to Henri Cartier-Bresson. i think its part of Manfreds signature. So i think most of us still have a way to go

[RustBeltRaw]

I've read somewhere in CiC that your worst photos are your first 1000 photos. I have added another zero in my case

If you want to get really depressed, the common guideline for becoming an expert at something is spending 10,000 hours doing it. My camera's image counter has rolled over 5 times (50,000 shots), and I'll still be learning when I hit 500,000 shots. So don't worry about the numbers, worry about the photos, and never stop shooting.

My first general comment on you work is that all the shots you posted look somewhat overexposed. This is probably a result of the monitor you're working on (backlit laptop monitor, perhaps?), or it's a conscious aesthetic decision, which places it outside of reason. As Geoff said, you chose some really tricky subjects, which is a good thing. If you can master these you're well on your way to being a jack-of-all-trades photographer. If you can always come home with a good frame, you're doing something right.

• I'm not a big fan of flower shots, but this works. The smaller buds lead one's eye to the larger blossoms rather nicely, and the foreground and midground are cleanly separated. It does look dark, and the white balance looks a tad blue.
• I'm guessing your goal was capturing the stars? If so, not bad, but the overall shot's a bit dull. There are some guys doing brilliant stuff with light-painted foregrounds and astrophotography - tough, but might be worth a try.
• Good sense of distance and desolation. The color palette is nice, and the shot's sharp throughout. Probably the simplest image here, but it works.
• My favorite. Focal place looks a little too far back, but I'm guessing you didn't have much time to grab this. The dragonfly's red color separates it from the background very well. Might want to try adding saturation and sharpening for a little more pizzazz.

[AB26]

Bander, it is not that bad. What did it look like before PP?

A Nikon D7000, can you go very far off if set to Auto? I doubt it. You should be able to use PP only for very minor adjustments, like sharpening and cropping.
Maybe you should learn how to drive that Nikon of yours before blaming yourself for messing up images.

[UnicycleBloke]

I have been trying with post-processing for a while now ( got confused on where to set the limit between "cleaning the photo" and creating a whole new image which is, to me, not real photography)

I used to struggle with this, until I reasoned that a photograph is not a true depiction of reality in any case, but an artistic reflection in much the same way as a painting. Fiddling with composition, aperture, lighting, white balance and so on creates, if you get it right, something a little more than what your peepers were looking at. If post-processing is part of the image creation, then so be it.

Having said that, I almost never PP anything, other than cropping. I suspect that will change, at least for selected images.

I'm not qualified to critique your pictures, but I'd be well chuffed with that dragonfly despite the eye being a little soft.