Tried to give a try after reading the tutorial on using natural light & harvest time

[snowshine]

I am not any where near you guys who are either Pros or semi-Pros.

I have this kit lens 17-85mm that came with my 40D.

I have been pondering obtaining a new lens but cannot convince my Mrs yet to buy one.

The scene is just front of my home where the farmer cut the hay few days ago.
We here in UK are having an unusually sunny&warm days and just tried out the natural light at around 6.20 p.m.
The photo here attached








Regards

[JemC]

Hi Arun
I think you might be pleasantly surprised to learn that not all on here are Pros or semi pros, i for one am not, however you will find a lot of very friendly and helpful people who like myself and you enjoy photography, they will give you as much or as little help as you need and some very worthwhile tips,
I class myself as a novice so dont feel i am in a position to comment on your photo other than it's very pleasing on the eye, but i am sure others will,
I to am from the uk (Lancashire) and enjoying the weather, keep taking the pictures and post them on here, good or bad,
Regards
James

[dje]

Hi Arun

This is a pleasant image that is nicely composed in my view. However it is under-exposed and looks a bit flat. It can be improved with post processing though and if you want, I can post an edited version to illustrate this. It needs sharpening, white level adjustment, increased contrast and a bit of colour enrichment.

Cheers Dave

[Donald]

Arun

I agree with what James writes - I don't know of any full-time pros here on CiC. There are a few people who do make some income from photography. But the important point is that you can produce the sorts of images that you admire on here. Sure it takes work and dedication to learning, but it can be done. I am the living proof.

And the wonderful thing about CiC is that people on here will offer all the help that you want.

As for that lens. I have it as well. And like you, I began to think that I needed to 'go better'. But then I got sensible. I started looking, really looking, at the quality of the images I was getting out of it. Sure, I'd love a 24-70 f2.8L. But the truth is, I don't need it.

The 17-85 (or at least my copy of it) is a beauty of lens. I've got 16 inch prints made of images taken with it and they are brilliant. So, yes, my lust is for the 24-70 and sometimes I feel the extra stop on the aperture would be great. But the fact is that my good old 17-85 is a very good lens and I'll stick with it.

So, listen to your Mrs. She's a wise woman.

As far as that image is concerned - How are you on post-processing? I'd be looking to move the black & white points and get some Local Contrast Enhancement into it to make it pop. If these terms are still a bit alien to you, you can read all about them in the tutorials. And, of course, ask questions here in the forum.

Getting despondent and thinking you'll never be as good as what you see on here is all part of the learning curve. We've all been there (at least those who are serious about learning and developing). But stick with it. You will start to see the difference in your work. I guarantee it.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Arun,

Why do you want a new lens?
What are you looking for? something; longer, shorter, faster, sharper?

The above picture was shot at f/6.3 at 1/160s at 320 iso and 72mm on the lens and camera you mentioned.

What Post processing do you do?

I ask because while the above image looks OK, it may stand some sharpening, you apparently uploaded a full 3886 x 1980 to TinyPic, which resampled it to their maximum of 1600 x 815px, losing any sharpening you did in the process.

You do really need to down size to 1600 x 815 yourself and sharpen before saving as a jpg, then upload that so nothing further happens to it. (Beyond a browser reduction to 700px across to fit posts here, but that is removed when you click the image and view in the Lytebox on a full browser window (toggle F11).
Here's a good workflow to use.

The tonal range is very low; from black at 16 (too high) and brightest at 190 (too low), but that may be intentional.

You might also want to read about and try Local Contrast Enhancement (LCE), it is very useful to get images to pop more - although, in this case, if you were aiming for the twilight look, you may not want to.

Cheers,

[rpcrowe]

Hi Arun...

Welcome to CiC. We are all friendly around here. This is a worldwide forum but, I'd be willing to bet that we get along better than most of the member nations of the U.N.

I totally agree that your image could use some sharpenening (all digital images need sharpening), contrast and a bit of color adjustment. It depends on what post processing programs you use as to how to go about this precess. But, you can end up with a crisp image that has the lovely golden glow of an autumn evening.

Another thing I would do for this image is to level out the horizon and then crop the sky a bit and also crop the field to a little under the first row of hay bales. This will result in a rectangular image, which IMO, brings attention to the hay bales and leads my eye off into the distance. Of course, when we talk about cropping an image, four different photographers will often have four equally valid ideas about how to crop.

There are several wonderful advantages about digital photography which film photographers did not enjoy. First is shooting free (after the initial equipment ids purchased) with almost instant feedback, then there is the control that we have over our images in post processing and finally, the advantages of being to show our images to other photographers rather than hoarding prints in a seldom viewed album or boring our friends and family with slide show of our vacation.

Keep shooting and posting...

[Dave Humphries]

Hi again Arun,

Here's what people have suggested;

Click to see at 1484 x 693 in Lytebox and compare

Crop and straighten
LCE with USM: 30% and 110px
Levels: 0, 1.1 and 215
Auto Color (it's late)
Sharpen with USM: 0.3px, 75%, 3 threshold

Hope it helps - but it may not be what you were aiming for,

[ddp4me]

Hello Arun,

YOUR photograph is amazing! That time of the evening is my absolute favorite.

When I viewed it full screen with the minor edits that Dave H. did, . . .

I could hear the crickets chirping . . .
and smell the hay and that special evening aroma that I love so much in memories of visits to my grandmother's farm . . .
and hear her porch swing creaking overhead.
What a pleasant and peaceful moment!

That's what a photograph can do! And YOU took it and can edit it just as well as Dave H. with a little advice (thanks guys) and some practice.

Be encouraged, you sure encouraged me with that great memory! Thanks. (alright, I;m a little sappy)

[snowshine]

Hi all
That was great and encouraging.
I have this Aperture V2.1 on my Mac [a photo editing tool], that I tried sharpening. However, I have not fully understood sharpening as yet.

I will read @ Dave's post in detail again and will attempt to understand. I love what you have done to the image. I purposely under exposed by two stops in the hope to get the sky blue & the camera was hand held. I set my camera on M and toggling with both Shutter and Aperture to under expose by 2 steps]. This I did by increasing my shutter speed.
If I put my camera on a tripod and insted of increasing the shutter speed control the Aperture to next up the sharpening may have been better I wonder.

As was the white balance:I again tried the by placeing the "eye Dropper" over the white house, you could find on the top right of the original photo, and clicked to change it. I must confess the White Balance jumped form some 6873 to some 8764. So I must have gone too far into the ?Blue?
@dje Please go ahead and sharpen it to show how it could be altered..

@Donald & @Dave a very sound and sensible advice. I should put my 17 -85 maximum use and first enjoy capturing images.

It looks today will be another Sunny Warm day and If I could get another go at it around sun set from a different angle and get your constructive advice and suggestion. [After all the scene is just in front of my home and that is a bonus] Ha Ha.

@ddp4me You're spot on. The noices from birds and the other creatures were phenominal. I only after returning home noticed a sparrowhawk pearch on a bale on the centre of my photo. I did not notice at the time though.

Last but not least, I wish to thank you all.

Regards

[dje]

Hi all

@dje Please go ahead and sharpen it to show how it could be altered..

Arun

This was the quick edit that I tried. It has a bit of a different emphasis to that from Dave H. But the point is it all depends what you are looking for. Your original image was well and truly good enough to manipulate into something a bit better.

Cheers Dave

[Dave Humphries]

As was the white balance:I again tried the by placeing the "eye Dropper" over the white house, you could find on the top right of the original photo, and clicked to change it. I must confess the White Balance jumped form some 6873 to some 8764. So I must have gone too far into the ?Blue?

Hi Arun,

Yes, the problem with sampling on the house is that it is in shadow, so only illuminated by the blue sky, hence the high Kelvin figure.
I tried sampling on something else, but it didn't work so, being late I gave up and went Auto, which I think may have overdone the reds a bit.

The white house is a definite eye catcher though, does it add to the composition? I don't think so, which is why I cropped it off, in fact I 'slightly missed' with my crop, I had intended to take out all of the reamaining square edged thing on right too.

I had a feeling there was some deliberate action on your part with the exposure and now we know how and why. Therefore I suspect mine is too bright and I have lost the blueness of the sky and cloud by cropping to get horizon nearer 'a third'. It maybe that the sky and foreground need separate treatment on different layers in PP and combining by masking to get 'the best of both'.

Most of the lack of sharpening issues are due to the size it was uploaded at, if you follow the linked instructions, you should be fine, but note I found 100% was too much for the amount and used 75%.

I didn't see the bird

Cheers,

[FrankMi]

It is usually easier to set the White Balance correctly if you can include a gray card reference in your image but what if you can't or don't have one? Here is a simple procedure you can use on any image to find the neutral gray point for setting White Balance.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/p.../neutral-gray/

[snowshine]

Hi
Just went an hour earlier to give another try at the scene but a different angle [5.20 p.m.].
It was more cloudier than yesterday though it was very warm day. I wanted to get a red glow to the evening sky but realised that is not going to happen tonight at golden hour and hence captured this earlier get the shadow from the evening sun. Also the farmer has started to collect bales and it won't be there tomorrow for me to experiment with the composition or scene exposure.



Regards

[GeorgeM]

Arun

This was the quick edit that I tried. It has a bit of a different emphasis to that from Dave H. But the point is it all depends what you are looking for. Your original image was well and truly good enough to manipulate into something a bit better.

Cheers Dave

This seems to be the closer match to an evening shot. At least on my monitor.