new member - Bernard Boyle

[Benjy]

Hi,complete beginner with a sony a230 looking for tips on photography

[tb72]

Welcome on CIC forum

[Benjy]

thanks,complete beginner,not to sure where to start???????

[Donald]

thanks,complete beginner,not to sure where to start???????

Bernard

Welcome to another resident of dear old Scotland. Best place to start? Click on the 'Photography Tutorials' tab near the top of the page and go from there. These tutorials are amongst the very best that you will find anywhere: Good information, well laid out.

And then start firing lots of questions which people on here will be happy to try and answer.

And just to make you feel even more at home ..........



From the shore at Ross Priory, Gartochan.

[Benjy]

Hi Donald,cheers for info.Been to Ross Priory umpteen times as my sister lives on road approaching it,never viewed it like your photo,an old friend of mine often tells the story that the German prisoners of war planted the forests that you have photographed in such a manner that they had a swastika showing with different coloured trees,it could be clearly seen when he was fishing from his boat at Ross Priory.....

[Donald]

Hi Donald,cheers for info.Been to Ross Priory umpteen times

We stay in the cottage at the bottom of the road past the house, for a long weekend every year. This was from the concrete patio area outside the cottage with a 70-200 zoom lens at 200mm

[Benjy]

Hi Donald, my sister stays in third or fourth cottage at top of the road,works in small shop in village, Benjy

[Benjy]

Balloch Castle Loch Lomond

Photo enlarged by Mod...

[carregwen]

Balloch Castle Loch Lomond

Photo enlarged by Mod...

Hi Bernard, and welcome to here...

I edited your post to make the shot larger - people are more likely to look if it's posted as full-size. You might want to read this for posting images on the site. https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/thread5745.htm

I used to live in Helensburgh (by the golf course) just over the hill from you. I do miss Scotland...

[Dave Humphries]

Balloch Castle Loch Lomond

Hi Benjy,

I hesitated to reply to a single first image, but upon reviewing your first post, it does say you're "looking for tips on photography", so here goes. I have tried to be helpful with some common abbreviations/acronyms on the way.

I don't know what PP software you might have access to - I think you have done some though, or you've been careful to keep the camera level during capture to get the castle walls vertical top left. This may explain the missing top of the left turret and no 'air' above the more central turret.

As there is no EXIF on the image, I can't see what settings were used, but note the camera is a Sony A230 DSLR, also from your first post.

These in order of importance (as I see them), so stop reading if you feel there is "too much, too soon" - I tend to do that - I never know when to stop

I see quite a lot of flare - if you can, use a lens hood, and if the conditions were subject to 'scotch mist', try to keep the lens front clean and dry - beyond that, just deal with it as best you can in PP. I have applied two passes of Local Contrast Enhancement (LCE) using UnSharpMask (USM) on two layers in Elements to improve this. Followed by some careful darkening (called Burning) of the image at centre and top right.

The composition seemed to have a bit of wasted space to right and below, so I applied a new crop.

I did some localised desaturation top right to remove what was probably a small amount of Chromatic Abberation (CA) on the turret edges against the sky.

The magenta blooms look soft, probably because the red and/or green channels had overloaded during capture - if your camera has a tri-colour histogram feature, keep an eye on that during shooting an apply some negative Exposure Compensation (EC) to a second capture. The other alternative for a cause of softness in bushes and trees would be a slow shutter speed and a stiff breeze (well, it is in Scotland ) - the castle is sharp, so it definitely isn't camera shake.

I cloned out a couple of distracting straight edged things in the foreground flower bed as they were 'at odds' with the rest of the image. Attention to detail pays off.

I did a final sharpen with USM; at 90% and 0.3 px.
It looked quite sharp in foreground anyway, so perhaps focusing a little further back would have spread the Depth of Field better across the image - just a thought.

Anyway, I hope all that helps.

Here are your original and my re-edit to compare, click an image so it opens in a Lytebox, then and click on right and left halves of image to flick between them to see the subtle changes made.




One final thought, looking super-critically again at my edit, the central building between the trees seems to be leaning; it has a clockwise twist, so in a change from my comments above, I think the lens has some pincushion distortion and by getting the castle vertical at the edge of frame top right, it has resulted in that lean in centre of frame. I think I should shut up now ....

Oooh, I nearly forgot; welcome to the CiC forums from ...

[Benjy]

Hi Dave,thanks for the tips as a complete beginner I can see some of your points ,others not got a scooby but will take my time and try to work out them,thanks a lot Benjy...just in from hillwalking will upload latest picture for your comments......

[Benjy]

HI Carregwen,just back from hillwalking took a couple of pictures you that might bring back a few memories,cheers Benjy

[carregwen]

HI Carregwen,just back from hillwalking took a couple of pictures you that might bring back a few memories,cheers Benjy

Very good. I remember doing the Ben Lomond fell race in 1987 - I didn't have a chance to take any shots so here's one of the Cobbler up the road taken in the same year... perhaps I should move to Scotland again... what do you reckon, Donald...

[Donald]

perhaps I should move to Scotland again... what do you reckon, Donald

I'll alert the border guards at Gretna Green that you're on your way.

That's a different shot of The Cobbler, which folks may wish to compare with my view in Post #4 above.

Having grown up in the Highlands of Scotland I always think that these mountains look much better from sea-level looking up at them and not all this nonsense of climbing up them or, worse still, running up them in hill and fell races. Madness .......sheer madness!

[wallyjs]

Just happened to be browsing through the forum and came upon your photo. I am partial to landscapes and I have to tell you this one is stunning. I feel as though I am standing right there.