establishing a base line

[casper]

First post. These were taken last weekend at a local sculpture exhibition. All are unedited except for resizing, and will hopefully give an indication of where I am currently at. I would appreciate all comments, particularly with regard to basic errors common to more than one image. All taken with Fuji SF100s (bridging).

waterfall - Manual, F3.6, 0.3s, ISO200, focal length 11.7mm - the intention was to slow the water down


ouch - manual, F3.2, 1/30s, ISO400, 12.8mm -this appears a bit darker than it should have been, but very deep below the canopy


back at ya - manual, F6.4, 1/13s, ISO400,13.4mm - my son taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking... - cable car girders behind seem overexposed


colourful - auto, F3.0, 1/120s, ISO800, 9.8mm - I think this one looks OK except for cutting off top of tallest spire, but I can't recognise faults well yet.

[Donald]

Casper

Good on you for getting in there early in your CIC career and posting up images for comment.

On the first two, you seem to have the focus in the wrong place.

In the first one (the water falling), the focus seems to be right up at the back of the image at the top of the frame. The same on the second one - the focus is behind the sculpture meaning it is out of focus.

That doesn't seem to be a problem with the third one and is certainly not a problem with the fourth one, which I think is the pick of this set.

The fourth one is for me, a really good example of colour being used well in an image. Colour is what it's all about and I think you have captured that well. One thing to note with that one (and you may have seen it) is that you've got the longest piece touching the top of the frame. I think it would be better inside or well outside, so it doesn't look like it's in that position just by accident.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Casper,

I think Donald has covered it well, nothing really to add.

You have provided these at a good size too, well done.

You will have to learn some PP, what program do you have?
At the very least would be a crop is usually necessary - the camera's sensor, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, is unlikely to be right for every subject you shoot and I can see where you might want to alter that with some of these.

It is a very good idea to draw this baseline, we can come back in a year's time an see how you have progressed
(I have a feeling it may be "quite far")

Welcome to the CiC forums from ...

[FrankMi]

Hi Casper and welcome to CiC! Donald and Dave have the right idea. Shoot what interests you, post, get feedback, take what you have learned and go out and shoot some more. We all start out that way and the learning (and associated fun) goes on and on.

The second and third shots have a clearly defined subject but need simplification as the background is very busy. There are a number of ways to do this and in these two cases you may want to open the aperature (lower the F-Stop number) to keep the subject sharp and let the busy background go a bit soft so that it does not compete as much with the subject.

Nice color in the last one! If you can, don't be afraid to reshoot the last one to include the top of the tallest pole.

[casper]

Thanks, Don. I am grateful for your comments. One of the first things I need to do is move from "point, shoot" to "point, think, check, shoot".

[Donald]

Thanks, Don. I am grateful for your comments. One of the first things I need to do is move from "point, shoot" to "point, think, check, shoot".

Don't forget - 'STOP - look all round the viewfinder and check what is in (or what is not) inside the frame'. Comes somewhere between 'think' and 'check'.

[casper]

hi Dave, thanks for your builds. I play around with image editing quite a bit, using Ps CS3. I didn't tinker with these because I did not want to hide any faults. I almost always shoot 4:3 for viewing on a monitor and then crop to 3:2 if I want to print 6 x 4. "Shoot wide, crop tight" is a good motto, something else I need to think of before pressing the shutter. Thanks also for the friendly welcome.

[casper]

hi Frank, thank you also for your welcome and constructive comments. I am a little aperture constrained with my camera - specification is f2.8 to f11, but effectively it is limited to f3.2 to f8 (second shot was about as wide as I could get, but maybe could have manipulated DoF by stepping back and using telephoto). You are 100% correct. Some of my other shots from the same trip almost disappeared in the background. I must train my brain, I must train my brain, I must train .....