Salt Flats

[hurstclan]

I was just hoping for some constructive criticism on my first real serious attempt at landscape photography.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi,

I cannot see a link to a picture in your post, so if you uploaded, perhaps you didn't put the link into the post?

You will find these useful I hope:
HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?
How to Get Effective Feedback for your Posted Images

Warm welcome to the CiC forums from me.

Please reply to this thread and have another go at adding the image - rather than start another new thread with same title.


Could you do me a favour please?
Could you click Settings (right at the top),
then Edit Profile (on left)
and put your first name in the Real Name field
and where you are (roughly) in the Location field?
this helps everyone give you more personal and relevant answers - thanks in advance.

Good luck, Dave

[hurstclan]

Oops... still getting used to the forum, sorry!

[NorthernFocus]

Interesting concept but the execution is not working for me. The only point of interest would be the salt itself but the largest/closest crystals are OOF. Beyond that, the horizon is centered which rarely works.

[IzzieK]

Unique shot...I am still thinking maybe this needs a missing element, a hand to get the scale of reality. I don't know...

[Stagecoach]

Hi ? and welcome to CiC.

Firstly, for your first serious attempt at landscape you have chosen a great scene, minimalist, simple appealing colour and I find it very appealing, well done.

Having said that I will offer the following constructive comments (not criticism) on how I see you could have improved the outcome.

Generally, as Dan has mentioned it is recommended that the horizon is placed at around a 1/3 from the top or bottom. In this case I would have placed it at 1/3 from the top as there is little interest in the sky above the clouds.

The subject of interest is the salt and by focusing at the correct depth within the scene you could have achieved the best DOF (Depth of Field) to give sharp focus (hence increased detail) to the salt at the bottom of the frame, closest to the camera. To achieve this requires the knowledge of knowing at what distance into the scene to focus on for the lens Aperture and Focal Length you are using. Being unsure of the shooting data for this image and your knowledge I will not go deeper into this but if you want advice, just ask here.

The sky is somewhat blotchy and not sure if this has been caused by your PP on the image or uploading to the site.

Personally, I think for an image that is minimalist with little within it achieving a high quality is essential, fortunately not too difficult to do in shooting conditions like this.

Hope the above is of some help..................

Hopefully you have another chance to shoot the scene, there's so much potential with it.

Grahame

[hurstclan]

Thanks everyone! I haven't really done any pp with the photo... so adjusting the horizon would be easy enough. As for the DOF, I would love some advice on how to do this. I'm currently (sadly) still in auto, but trying to work my way into manual. I understand the concepts of aperture, shutter speed, and iso - but unfortunately, I don't have that down yet. I've also moved on to raw files (this unfortunately was shot as jpeg). Again, thanks everyone for the help!

[Geoff F]

Yes, I agree that the foreground really needs to be well focused for the scene to achieve its full potential. A problem that I often get every Spring when attempting to shoot fields of bluebells and similar mass growing flowers.

The only real option if you have suitable software is to take two, or more, shots with different focus points using a tripod then merge them together.

One thing which I find can help is to shoot from full standing height so your foreground line is some distance from you. Which helps to place it closer to infinity, where the sky is lurking.

However, if you need to shoot from a closer position to get a better sense of perspective you may need at least three different focus points.

An alternative, I suppose, is to let the sky fade out of focus and concentrate on a much closer and larger foreground area.

Use a fairly narrow aperture (eg F11 or thereabouts) and to get a consistent exposure of multiple shots try noting the auto (or aperture priority) settings then enter them into the manual alternative.

[Stagecoach]

Branden,

What camera and lens did you use for this?

What was the focal length, aperture, speed and ISO for this shot?

Grahame

[hurstclan]

Grahame,
Unfortunately, I don't have any of the settings from this shoot as it was a while back and I didn't seem to keep the exif data - but I can tell you it was taken from a Canon Powershot SX50 HS on Auto.

[mknittle]

Hi Branden,
You have a lot of opportunities out there on the salt flats. I spent a moonlit night out there once back when I was a truck driver.
I like this image for The depth of field. I can barely make out the mountains in the background. very nice.

[mknittle]

Thanks everyone! I haven't really done any pp with the photo... so adjusting the horizon would be easy enough. As for the DOF, I would love some advice on how to do this. I'm currently (sadly) still in auto, but trying to work my way into manual. I understand the concepts of aperture, shutter speed, and iso - but unfortunately, I don't have that down yet. I've also moved on to raw files (this unfortunately was shot as jpeg). Again, thanks everyone for the help!

there are some excellent tutorials from the home page of this site. plus there is a bunch of nice very helpful people of all experience levels on the fourms

[IzzieK]

According to your EXIF or lack of it, you used Photoshop CS6 and your operating system is Windows...Geoff has a pretty good advice on his last sentence there...(Message #8). I used to do that in my old days of digital when I bought my first digital camera. Very soon I got tired of it because I was really used to shooting manual and spot meter.

[hurstclan]

Izzie, I found the original exif data:
Canon Powershot SX50 HS
f/5.6
shutter = 1/1000 of a sec.
ISO-80
Focal Length 4mm.
Also - here's another shot from the same day with a bit of perspective (and some minor pp) ...

[IzzieK]

I like this one better ... now this is most ideal. And the EXIF now I am able to click on to see it too. Thank you for indulging my whim. I really do appreciate it very much.

[FrankMi]

Izzie, I found the original exif data:
Canon Powershot SX50 HS
f/5.6
shutter = 1/1000 of a sec.
ISO-80
Focal Length 4mm.
Also - here's another shot from the same day with a bit of perspective (and some minor pp) ...

Much better Branden! I have an SX50 and love it!

If you want to move off of using Auto, there is an easy way to get started. To maintain a proper exposure you can trade Aperture for Shutter Speed. The higher the Aperture number, the wider the area of focus or Depth of Field as it is referred to. The faster the shutter speed, the sharper faster moving objects appear. Changing the setting for one is balanced by changing the setting for the other to get the same exposure.

Your camera has a neat feature on the dial where you see Auto, called Aperture Priority. You just set the Aperture for the amount of Depth of Field you want and the camera automatically compensates by changing the shutter speed by the proper amount!

You can do the same sort of thing with Shutter Priority. Set the shutter speed for how much stop action you want and the camera will automatically compensate by changing the Aperture. It is sort of the half-way point between full Auto and manually adjusting these settings.

Because for most of the landscapes I shoot, there isn't fast moving objects in the image, I frequently use Aperture Priority for images like the one you have here. Hope this helps!

[hurstclan]

Frank - it helps quite a bit - thanks!!

I may have to pick your brain a lot where we both have the same camera (I know all camera's are basically the same mechanically speaking) and both seem to be into landscape photography. I look forward to learning a lot from everyone on this forum!

[FrankMi]

If you would like to see some of the images I took with the SX50, take a look at my Smugmug link in the signature below. Each image is identified by date and camera. There are quite a few of the Canon SX40 images which I took before I upgraded to the SX50. Except for the zoom range and the SX50 can shoot RAW, they are pretty much the same camera.

[selig1656]

The first pic is hard to tell what you are trying to accomplish , DOF seems to be lacking and the horizon is a negative in respect to composition of the subject. Pic two is a whole different story and the addition of the people add tremendously to the presenting the emensity of the salt, the mountains also add a better perspective on DOF . Nice job on the B/W balance.

[Wavelength]

The second one is a lively, lovely image