Pics taken for college - your brutal C&C pls

[TamEric]

let me know what you guys think pls - be honest - brutally honest

1
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o200/ConnerMuniz/Pic7.jpg

2
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o200/ConnerMuniz/Pic6.jpg

3
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o200/ConnerMuniz/Pic5.jpg

4
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o200/ConnerMuniz/Pic4.jpg

5
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o200/ConnerMuniz/Pic3.jpg

6
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o200/ConnerMuniz/pic2.jpg

7
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o200/ConnerMuniz/pic1.jpg

[The_Camera_Poser]

The bee is #1 is too small- it'd be more effective if larger. #2 is too dark. #4 is really cool! In number 7, because the centre of the flower is in shadow, it looks like the whole picture is out of focus.

Cheers!

[VegasGeorge]

1,2 and 3 are too dark. The B&W needs more tonal range. Number 4 just looks like a mistake, like an inadvertent shutter release. 5 is too dark, needs a tighter crop to accentuate the diagonal element, and more contrast. In number 6, my eye goes to the "XII", but finds it out of focus. Number 7 is too soft, I can't find anything in focus.

[tdodd]

1. Too dark and too small. The bee may be sharp but it's hard to judge. The rest clearly isn't. If you're going to use narrow DOF your subject really needs to pop more. The bee is really a bit lost in this photo.

2. Too dark. Maybe composition could be improved. I'm not sure how you keep all of the orange ears in while still keeping tight on the subject but you could pan a smidge to the right to include the very tip of the plant in full and lose just a little of the space over on the left. Consider the plant a bit like a head/face, with a bit more room left in front of it than behind.

I took a similar shot a few weeks ago with my P&S and used some fill-flash (attached). I think the flash helps make the colours pop. This was not supposed to be a work of art shot, just a snap my girlfriend wanted. I did get the composition a bit off but like I said, it was a quickie :) Also the P&S oversharpened and oversaturated the picture, which I've tried to fix a little in Lightroom. I've since dropped the saturation a notch in the camera, which seems to have helped. I just wish (all) P&Ss did raw.

3. I'm not sure what this is portraying. I don't think the B&W treatment works too well and the DOF is a bit hit and miss. It lacks contrast.

4. Shows promise as a pseudo abstract but seems a bit underexposed and flat. Needs experimenting with post processing and trying a few more shots to try and get a better capture. Worth pursuing.

I've taken the liberty of tweaking your photo with a couple of simple edits in Lightroom. Quality is shot to bits by the edit/save on top of an aleady small photo but see what you think. (attached below)

5. Doesn't seem a very interesting subject. OK as a DOF practical exercise but not very interesting as a photograph.

6. I would have tried for either a lot more DOF or a lot less. Your version seems hung in no man's land, neither all sharp nor punchy and creative. If going for shallow DOF I would have moved the focal point back a bit, probably to the XI mark.

7. I can't really spot the focus point in this photo. I think you need a lot more DOF and to consider exactly where you are focusing. The histogram shows your exposure to be about right (some white clipping but not too bad) but I think you need to throw a little light into the plant (flash or reflector) to bring out the colour of the yellow and brighten the white petals, which do look a bit drab.


I've just checked your exif data on all 7 photos and note that you are at F5.6 for all of them except the water, which is at F32. I imagine the F32 shot is in order to get the 1/3 second exposure rather than to control DOF. I think you really need to give some more thought to picking a suitable aperture to control DOF properly. You may be a bit limited as far as wide apertures go, by your lenses, but just think about whether you need to stop down a bit for some shots, and maybe by reducing focal length you can open up further. e.g. why were number 2, and number 3 especially, shot at 300mm?

Sorry these comments are a bit harsh - you did ask for hard criticism :) For what it's worth it is a lot easier to sit back and ponder a photograph at leisure and to be critical than it is to get it spot on first time out in the field, or at least it is for me. I don't suppose I would have done any better if it was me trying to take these shots. Hopefully you will find the critique useful ,or you may just disagree and ignore my comments. Good luck with your photography :)

[vvilko]

1 and 2 are too dark, 4 is brillaint,
not sure bout the rest

[tdodd]

I just tried a bit of tweaking on number 3 as well, bumping up exposure and contrast, desaturating fully (it was largely desaturated anyway but still had some green lurking in parts of the plant) and increasing sharpness significantly. I also cloned out a particularly offensive white spot near the middle of the photo.

[vvilko]

yeah thats alot better

[DocFrankenstein]

Only two pics are interesting.

The black and white cactus and the waves.

[Wildewinds]

Being brutally honest, #'s 1, 2, 5, and 7 are uninteresting. The effect done by Tdodd saves #3. #6 would have been nice, but the focus point is odd. My eye is drawn to the "I" and "XII", but those are out of focus.

On a good note, #4 is nice.

[gooble]

#1- Too dark. What is subject, bee or flower? Either way it's smack in the middle which is unappealing. If it's the bee it's very small and not very sharp. The flowers are all soft.

#2- Too dark.

#3- Too dark. Not sure what it is. Not much is in focus.

#4- Too dark, unappealing and OOF.

#5- Best one so far. Would be better with focus at a rule-of-thirds point.

#6- Good exposure, contrast, color and composistion. Strangely enough I think the XII should have the focus on it. Even thought that is pretty much in the middle my eye is drawn there by the two intersecting bands and the light reflection.

#7- good composition except bottom of flower cut off. Too soft overall.

[TamEric]

wow so many useful comments thanks so much

right now i'm exposing off of a grey card so its a bit difficult to get it right but i just ordered my light meter (yay yay yay) and i am awaiting its arrival

i have learnt a lot from your comments

Thank u

[tdodd]

TamEric, I saw in another one of your posts here - http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=3329210&postcount=6 - that you recommend using "a piece of grey card" to set exposure. I infer from that that you mean any old piece of card that is grey coloured. To set exposure accurately you need a photographic grey card that reflects exactly 18% of the incident light and has zero colour cast (if you want to use it to set white balance as well). If you just grab a bit of greyish card that happens to be handy then your results will more than likely not be good. You will note that in comments above several of your photographs are judged to be too dark so are you sure your metering technique is correct? When you meter off the card are you filling the frame with the card or using partial/spot metering to make sure you meter off the card only and not any surround/background?

What is your histogram telling you about your exposures? I would guess they are mostly bunched to the left. Ideally you want to expose to push the histogram to the right if you can, so long as you don't blow the highlights. It is better to reduce the exposure in post processing than to have to increase it. Or getting the exposure bang on in the first place is obviously a nice option.

Are you shooting raw or jpeg? If you shoot raw you will get more freedom to fine tune your photos in post processing and maintain better quality than by editing jpeg files.

[Pete W]

Look guys you all missed the obvious reason for the errors

TamEric
Nikon D50
Nikon 18mm - 50mmm
Nikon 70mm - 300 mm

Yes yes yes I know - I'm one of thoseeeeee Nikon users....


Only joking, some great feedback from POTN users as usual.. Probably why you posted here rather than a Nikon site ;)

[TamEric]

TamEric, I saw in another one of your posts here - http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=3329210&postcount=6 - that you recommend using "a piece of grey card" to set exposure. I infer from that that you mean any old piece of card that is grey coloured. To set exposure accurately you need a photographic grey card that reflects exactly 18% of the incident light and has zero colour cast (if you want to use it to set white balance as well). If you just grab a bit of greyish card that happens to be handy then your results will more than likely not be good. You will note that in comments above several of your photographs are judged to be too dark so are you sure your metering technique is correct? When you meter off the card are you filling the frame with the card or using partial/spot metering to make sure you meter off the card only and not any surround/background?

What is your histogram telling you about your exposures? I would guess they are mostly bunched to the left. Ideally you want to expose to push the histogram to the right if you can, so long as you don't blow the highlights. It is better to reduce the exposure in post processing than to have to increase it. Or getting the exposure bang on in the first place is obviously a nice option.

Are you shooting raw or jpeg? If you shoot raw you will get more freedom to fine tune your photos in post processing and maintain better quality than by editing jpeg files.


i mean a photographic grey card from kodak. My metering technique is correct but because the grey cards are so expensive here college gave us a piece of grey card (suppose almost like the photographic grey card) to work off of.

And of course my aim is to get the exposure and sharpness bang on the first time round :D

I am shooting Jpeg for now.

I only have the basics down for photoshop and will be doing my photoshop course soon (can't wait)

FOR EVERYONE - anyhoooooooooooo as for pic no 4 its the bottom of a waterfall where the water falls into the puddle... i slowed the shutter down to get the streaking effect. Funny how photography is such a subjective form of art as my lecturers loved it

maybe i should post the pics that they did like and get feedback from you guys on them?