Advice please, what is wrong with this photo?

[Tony McSpadden]

Hi Guys/Gals - newbie here




i took this photo at the weekend, i was super excited at the time as i caught it exactly when i wanted to! right body posture etc.

it was taken on a canon 400d with a canon 70-200 L f2.8 with a 1.4x extender.

the colours are really washed out and there is no "life" to the photo, i am very new to this, the camera was set on the Sports setting, TV 1/1250, Aperture 8.0, iso 400.

i guess i expected more from the photo.

thanks

tony

please be as harsh as is needed.

[Tony McSpadden]

hmm in adjusting it's size for uploading it has lost it's sharpness, i don't want to upload the full res as i am not sure that is allowed...

but the real shot is alot sharper.

[Hermeto]

Your subject is under exposed by at least 1 stop.
Bright skies behind him fooled camera meter to give wrong exposure.

Next time, meter of the grass and shoot in M mode.

[jcpoulin]

Also, you may try changing the color temp setting ( if not done) to sunny as it was quite bright. Auto setting has a tendency to be flat. The green grass will perk up as wil his shirt.

[sando]

3 things:

Underexposed.

Slightly out-of-focus.

White balance is off.

[SkipD]

In addition to all of the above (underexposed, white balance, etc.) - the flat white background (the sky) is not a good background for the airborne subject in my opinion. You might have been able to improve the sky's appearance with a polarizing filter.

Manual exposure control is the only way to keep this sort of shot properly exposed.

If you had created the image in RAW mode, a lot of the needed corrections would be much easier to do than if the original was a .JPG image.

Stay away from the "picture" modes ("green box" and everything else with a picture on the dial) and control your camera.

[Tony McSpadden]

thanks for the input guys.

the photo lost focus it seems in the compression onto the site i uploaded it to!

i went shopping today and got myself a 30d, sigma 17-70 f2.8, canon 100-400 L IS, Speedlight 430, grip for said camera, bag and Tripod.

might as well do things properly

[PacAce]

It's always best to get the picture right when it is taken and some good advice have been given above on how to do that. But if this is the shot you really want and can't retake the shot, you may be able to salvage the shot with a little bit of post processing. Here's a quick example of what can be done with the low res image you posted. You'd be able to get better results with the original.

Joe+Hockly.jpg

[StewartR]

Originally Posted by Tony McSpadden

i went shopping today and got myself a 30d, sigma 17-70 f2.8, canon 100-400 L IS, Speedlight 430, grip for said camera, bag and Tripod.

might as well do things properly

I would suggest that the way to "do things properly" is to learn how to use your camera. Buying more expensive equipment will not make you immune to errors like this one!

[chris clements]

Seconded.
Buying up the whole toyshop in one hit is not 'doing things properly' ; IMO it's just the reverse.
You should take the time to master the (very capable) kit you've already got.

[PhotosGuy]

Your subject is under exposed by at least 1 stop...

I start by aiming for a properly exposed flat-white & refine from there. The sky, water, reflection, might all throw the histogram off, so I use this to be sure that the bright areas "at the right" are the bright areas I want to keep:
Need an exposure crutch?

[Tony McSpadden]

hi guys

thanks for your advice so far and i do appreciate the comments on buying equipment, i do the same for people on kitesurfing forums as know quite a bit

the reasoning behind the equipment choice is not just to have the toys, the stuff i want to do is all mid range sports shots (kiteboarding/kitesurfing) and i took my budget and looked (with advice from a friend that knows quite a bit and from reading on here *before i joined*) the 70-200 in my list is not mine but borrowed.

i have spent alot of the day today reading and i hope to have better results soon.

thanks again.

tony

[totalbeginner]

If you're into shooting sports then the 30D is a good choice! The best way to learn is to keep practicing and we'll look forward to the results!

[VegasGeorge]

Hey PacAce, what technique did you use to get the blue in the blown out sky?

[PacAce]

Originally Posted by VegasGeorge

Hey PacAce, what technique did you use to get the blue in the blown out sky?

It's called the "bait and switch" technique.

No, seriously, though, all I did was create another layer and bucket fill it with the color you see. I then varied the opacity of the layer to get the "right" look. In retrospec, I think it would have looked a little more realistic if I had used the gradient fill with a slightly darker and a slightly lighter blue instead of using the bucket fill with a solid color.

Anyway, the layer was masked so that the blue color only appeared where the sky was (or you can select the sky before you bucket-fill the color). I used the image itself to create the mask by making it even darker and keeping the sky white using the levels tool.

[EDIT: BTW, there is enough detail in the sky to coax the colors out of the original image. I just couldn't do it with the low res copy that's posted here without the high-compression JPEG artifacts showing through.]