Friends

[Bob_Prague]

90% of photos that I take are at get togethers with friends where I won't be carrying around any extra gear, just my G3 camera.. can anyone give any critique and advice on how I can improve my skills, based on the following pictures? (I know one's not enough)

http://www.yourprague.net/temp/nasdarovia.jpg
http://www.yourprague.net/temp/pavel.jpg

[barnold999]

Both of them I would gotten lower down...

First one, I would of gotten a little further back, the kid at the bottom is cropped off realy akward... and the woman on the top left... you cant see her head real well, and her hand just looks akward there.

Second Pic, the boys pose is nice... but being above him is really an anoying view on kids (you are always looking down at kids) If you got down lower you could of still seen the water... but then you would be at eye level with him. (Plus the white in front of him is destracting)

But you asked for critique... so thats what I gave :-)

[RbnDave]

Both pictures could have benifitted if you had used a flash. There are shadows across the faces of all your subjects.

Look closely at the background of the second picture. It seems overexposed. If the sky looks completely white, it is overexposed. When I take pictures of people in front of large landscapes, I first use Av mode and aim the camera at the sky in the background to test what shutter speed will give the sky the correct exposer. Then, I switch to manual mode and set the shutter speed and aperture to the tested values. These values will most likely cause the person in your photo to come out underexposed, but if you turn on the flash you shouldn't have any problems. It is always difficult to take a picture of people in front of landscapes because you are dealing with two different lighting levels and you can only get one exposure setting out of your camera.