Newbie in learning

[thenuts15]

Hi,

would like to get opinion on the photo i have shoot.Yeah i know is bad....these are the photos which is shot for the 1st time from a DSLR.I am using Canon EOS 700D 135mm lens.

Below is the link to my photos.
https://singaporetrip2015.shutterfly.com/pictures

Would like advices on settings and maybe some other good advice.

Thank you in advance.

[IzzieK]

Welcome to CiC...

[thenuts15]

Thank you...

[Stagecoach]

Hi,

would like to get opinion on the photo i have shoot.Yeah i know is bad....these are the photos which is shot for the 1st time from a DSLR.I am using Canon EOS 700D 135mm lens.

Below is the link to my photos.
https://singaporetrip2015.shutterfly.com/pictures

Would like advices on settings and maybe some other good advice.

Thank you in advance.

Hi 'thenuts'

Firstly, can you please fill in your name and where you are located so we know who you are

Secondly, it's rather difficult to look through so many images and make any useful comment, without doing a lot of work and not knowing your camera settings.

Can I suggest you select a couple of images you are not happy with, post them here using the instructions found in the FAQ section above, easiest to use the 'Tinypic' method. Post them at least 1000 px width with the shooting data, aperture, speed, ISO, FL and whether handheld or tripod.

Grahame

[William W]

Hello also,

. . . select a couple of images you are not happy with, post them here using the instructions found in the FAQ section above, easiest to use the 'Tinypic' method. Post them at least 1000 px width with the shooting data, aperture, speed, ISO, FL and whether handheld or tripod.
, , ,

+1 what Grahame wrote

[thenuts15]

Canon EOS 700D
f/5.6,1/40,ISO 2000,18mm,no tripod

[thenuts15]

[IzzieK]

Very nice and colourful...a good study of line and lighting to be sure...Just my opinion, this shot will be more stronger if you crop the LHS to just the line where the gradient starts, removing the white/red area.

[Geoff F]

An alternative would be to slightly crop the right side to reduce that block of colour and emphasise the sweep on the wall which may mean going to a different size ratio although you might be able to lose a bit from the top as well, and possibly a bit from the bottom.

There are several options depending on what you want from the scene.

The actual shooting settings look fine to me. You have managed to overcome several potential pitfalls regarding exposure and the focus is good.

[William W]

What are you unhappy about concerning this image Godfrey?
*

You captured the colour and the texture quite well.

I’d do both crops as suggested above and change the aspect ratio to emphasise the curvature and the vanishing point.

WW

[thenuts15]

was trying to upload few photos but fail.
When you said crop photos,you meant from PC right?

[William W]

. . .When you said crop photos,you meant from PC right?

Crop: To re-frame the photo in Post Production by cutting away one or more of the edges.

Aspect Ratio: the ratio of the length of the sides of the photo.
Often expressed as the ratio of the long side to the short side, e.g. 3:2, 4:3; 5:4, 16:9 . . .etc.
Sometime also expressed as a ratio ‘to one’ e.g. 1.5:1 (3:2), 1.33:1 (4:3), 1.25:1 (5:4), 1.77.1 (16:9) . . . etc.

***
Yes you can use a PC or Mac or other computer.

You Crop by opening the image file in a Post Production Program for example Photoshop, and use the Cropping Tool.

You can set the lengths of the sides, hence change the Aspect Ration, if you so want.

There are free Post Production programs also, such as Picasa 3, which you can download.







WW

[William W]

was trying to upload few photos but fail.

Suggest you follow the "Tinypic" method described here in POST #2:

HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?

WW

[thenuts15]

Wow....that is cool.Still lots of stuff to learn.
canon EOS 700D
f/5.6,1/10,ISO 3200,18mm,no flash,on tripod

[William W]

Godfrey,

What don't YOU like about the Night Scene?

How do YOU think it can be improved?

WW

[William W]

When one goes out to make a Photograph I think it is very important to have a VISION of how Final Image should look and what message it will convey to the VIEWER.

Even if it is a very brief description it is important to have a VISION or an OUTPUT goal.


The Vision for each Photograph does not have to be lofty or poetic or complex, it can be very simple.

A simple VISION for this image might have been:

“I want to make this a crisp colourful night scene and it should be in three parts: Crowd in Foreground; Water in Middle Ground; Buildings In Background”


If you have a vision for each of your Photographs, then when you later analyse your work you have a reference point from which you can established what worked well and what worked not so well – then you can set about investigating how to do better next time.



So whilst it is fun and also useful to post images and get feedback on them, you will learn more, and learn more quickly if you contribute to the conversation and describe what you think is lacking in a particular image or tell us what you wanted to capture but failed to achieve also describe where you think you did a good job, too.

***

One method to begin the process of critique on a Photograph is:

> To list the elements which are distracting or annoying to your eye

> And then to think about how and why those elements happened

> And then to think about how these annoying elements could be corrected

> And (importantly) think about how these annoying elements could be avoided next time

This method is very useful for SELF-critique and it is even better if you also write out your VISION and then you easily list the areas where you achieved that vision and also where you feel short of achieving your goal.

Some of this process is Subjective, so although there will be often a common ground where MOST people will find many of the same elements distracting, each of us will place different emphasis on what is most distracting and annoying.

*

In the absence of you describing where you think that the image can be improved . . . These are a few elements that I find distracting in your image:

> The sky is not black-black, but on the other hand there is not good detail in it

> The woman in the white dress bottom right corner is blurred and that blur renders her as an out of focus white blob in the midst of a very dark group of people and my eye is distracted by that

> The buildings are sloping inwards as they progress to their top – that is because you positioned the camera looking slightly upwards - this element, especially in Night-time Building-scapes particularly drives my brain nuts

> The crowd is actually quite interesting, but difficult to see much detail in them as all the people are lost in darkness.

> In general the picture doesn’t jump out and shout at me, it lacks sharpness and punch.

*

So, if this were mine I would set about fixing these distracting elements:

> Make the sky Black by resetting Black Point

> Crop out white dress woman blur

> re-align buildings (and learn to keep camera level next time)

> enhance shadow detail

> Sharpen, enhance colour and contrast, enhance saturation

Example



WW

[jcuknz]

Just for fun and as a challenge tgo myself I wondered what could be done with Paint which originally I found in Windows 3.1.1 and did my first PP changing pixel by pixel to block out the background around somebody's head [ Happy Days ] and the second programme is Paint.Net [ Paint Dot Net is a free download ]

First was to correct the building slope for which the answer is NOT to keep the camera level but rather master the PP skill to correct for it. To do this with two programmes which do not have perspective tools I used Paint to slope the whole image 3 degrees to the left and then copied the left hand part [ from the central tower to the left ] before sloping the image six degrees to the right and pasting the copy on top of it. save the result with an extra letter to avoid writing over the original file

Opening that file in Paint.Net the first job was to clone some black over the white dress. It was very nicely handy right next door. I think her head and shoulders are still there but the dress is gone. I quite like the slight suggestion of stars in the background [ unless they are dust on my monitor ] so the next task was to duplicate the layer and lighten the crowd a bit as they are an interesting aspect of the image and then erase the lightened layer everywhere except for the crowd. Merging the layers I now have one combined image and since the programme does not have provision for adding a border, not the hideous thing that WW added, I cheated by going to Paint Shop Pro which is my normal editor for a tasteful and discrete border ... well I think so I also added a little bit of sharpening to cover the numerous copying involved.

The main point is that while some things are a lot easier in PSP and PS,the is still a lot of potential in free programmes .. not least of which is GIMP which I never needed since I managed to afford PSP way back and have had no reason to change and have occasionally forked out my cash to upgrade every few versions.

[JR1]

Hi,

would like to get opinion on the photo i have shoot.Yeah i know is bad....these are the photos which is shot for the 1st time from a DSLR.I am using Canon EOS 700D 135mm lens.

Below is the link to my photos.
https://singaporetrip2015.shutterfly.com/pictures

Would like advices on settings and maybe some other good advice.

Thank you in advance.

Perhaps post some images not a complete website

welcome to you

[thenuts15]

I am not sure but the feeling is like the picture isn't enough.Dont know which to point out...maybe is the lighting from the bottom right or is it framing.

[Wavelength]

First image is wonderful ; second one is also nice
Regards