comments and suggestions at the beach

[michael.luczkow]

Comments or suggestions (about the photography :rolleyes: ) .... I went to the beack to shoot the sunset so I had my 70-200L on and nothing else. The girls wanted a group shot so i stood about 15 feet back and made due at 70mm. Besides using the right lens... what would you do with this shot. please comment on either how i took the picture, or feel free to comment on my post processing. I just "develop" from raw files and set the levels to what looks right on my screen and then save it...

http://blacklinux.com/hosted/shoko/IMG_1922.jpg

[Curtis N]

I don't see any problem with your lens choice.
To me, the most noticable flaw in the photo is that the horizon isn't level. And I think you have enough room there to straighten it and crop off the resulting corners.

[michael.luczkow]

only way to get them to stand straight up and have the horizon level put me in 5 feet of pacific ocean :-( I guess the lens isnt' too bad.

if you rotate an image a few degrees like that do you loose a ton of resolution?

[Curtis N]

if you rotate an image a few degrees like that do you loose a ton of resolution?Depends on what you mean by resolution.

If you're asking if it affects the sharpness of the image itself, I'd say no, as long as you're working with TIFF files and not losing data with multiple file saves. But rotating will create blank corners that need to be cropped out, and you will lose some pixels in the process. The extent of pixel loss depends on how much you rotate it. Now you have an image with fewer pixels that will need to be magnified more when you print it, so in extreme cases you will notice a loss of sharpness similar to any other image that you crop heavily.

I think most would agree that usually the improvement in tha aesthetic quality of a straight image outweighs any loss of sharpness.

[alsmith]

I would have tucked the girl on the right into the shot abit more and probably taken it from the other side so that the sun was behind them and used fill flash. (I use fill flash with my fixed focus 85mm and it adds alot) I think it would have helpend. It gives a bit of halo lighting to the hair and separates them from the background.

[garbidz]

you worry about losing resolution...is 8 million RAW pixels enough, is the L lens sharp...well
your problem is NOT the equipment, it is fine

you have pixels to spare, just start studying how to put them to use..

[Curtis N]

Here's the problem with fill flash in that situation:

First of all, he said he had a 70-200 lens. The FOV looks to be about 10 feet wide, which would require a camera-to-subject distance of about 30 feet with a 70mm focal length and a 1.6 crop factor camera (so his 15 ft. estimate was off a bit).

If he had a good flash unit with a guide number of 150 feet, he would need an f/stop of around 5 at ISO 100 to get proper illumination of shaded subjects.

The flash sync. speed (correct me if I'm wrong) on the 20D is 1/250. That shutter speed at f/5 in the sun is a sure-fire recipe for a hopelessly overexposed image. To expose the background correctly, he would need to stop down to about f/10, which would render the flash basically useless at that distance.

[garbidz]

well...if you have a look at the photo you see that there is already the sun blaring directly at a low angle on the subjects so there is very little for a fill-in flash to fill

rearranging the photo could make a difference, as well as using a different DOF

actually, I think that this shot could have turned out better with a lesser machine

[Titus213]

I would straighten, crop, and add a little levels. It looks a tad underexposed to me. You have plenty of room on both sides for straightening. The top is OK but the bottom is getting close once the re-crop after straightening is done. I tried it and it looks better to me.

I also checked your gallery - nice stuff. Looks crisp and well framed.

[alsmith]

Good point on the distance with the lens. I forgot about the lens he was using.

[michael.luczkow]

I also checked your gallery - nice stuff. Looks crisp and well framed.
thanks :-) when you say gallery... do you mean the one in my signature or the rest of the days shots?

heres the rest of the days shots.
http://blacklinux.com/hosted/shoko/

favorites?

[Titus213]

The link in you sig line....

First I've seen of the rest of the days shots...they look pretty good to. Is that a peace sign they are flashing with the hands or something else?

[michael.luczkow]

The link in you sig line....

First I've seen of the rest of the days shots...they look pretty good to. Is that a peace sign they are flashing with the hands or something else?

it's peace. it's just something you do in japan when someone says "hi cheeezu"

[learjet035]

I think it looks good, just a bit of adjustments.

[tonytony]

Some advice, just my 2 cents worth:

- Try to get the horizon level right. If not possible when you take the photo, then in post processing.
- Get closer... You had a nice zoom lens, use it... ;-)
- I'd put myself straight in front of the girl with the yellow shirt, rather than on a side.

Anyway, I like their expressions and the fun atmosphere you captured.

Cheers,
Antonio

[michael.luczkow]

Some advice, just my 2 cents worth:

- Try to get the horizon level right. If not possible when you take the photo, then in post processing.
- Get closer... You had a nice zoom lens, use it... ;-)
- I'd put myself straight in front of the girl with the yellow shirt, rather than on a side.

Anyway, I like their expressions and the fun atmosphere you captured.

Cheers,
Antonio

thanks for the comments guys.... like i said though, i was standing in a foot of water as it was. being directly in front of the girl in yellow would put me in some deep water :lol:

check my above post for some close shots.
cheers

[Prox]

What is it with japanese people and the "peace hand-signal"? Everytime i see pictures of japanese people they are making the hand-signal...must be some bug or virus...

[garbidz]

methinks they are goig to cut your balls off?

[jrf]

I would have tried some shots where some are kneeling and sitting with them fairly tight together. Some looking at the camera, some away, some of them just goofing off and just having fun - peace signs or whatever. Would have changed the angle as well - maybe the coastline or the wall in the back could be used as a leading line. They seem like a fun group that would be more than willing to be your guinea pigs.

The image below is not mine _corbis stock, but I like how the people are arranged. Staggering them adds so much more interest. The side lighting adds more dimension as well. Though this shot looks like a snap shot - no fill just sun lit, the photographer had a plan in mind. Hard to do some times but the more you shoot the more you will begin to pay attention to those types of things. KEEP SHOOTIN.

[michael.luczkow]

methinks they are goig to cut your balls off?

quite the opposite. trust me on this one :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[michael.luczkow]

okay what about this one...? it's interesting to hear what you guys have to say. I throw these out there and see if you guys say the same things i was thinking. so far so good. Guess that means the past few months here have actually helped me learn something.

http://blacklinux.com/hosted/shoko/IMG_1923.jpg

[michael.luczkow]

how would you fix that crop?, everything is good except the girl on the right seems out of place and out of focus. :-(