First post....would like a little CC!

[Bubbamark]

Hello,

Just joined the site and have been reading a lot! I am very new to photography and also new to editing. I would love some CC and any advice you are willing to pass on!

[Speedie]

Horizons need straightening in 2, 3 & 4.
I think you have some good composition ideas (3, 4 & 5).

[Meaty0]

Hi Bubbamark and welcome to the forums!

I'll just comment on the first two images.

The first one is a fine image and very colourful It is a bit blurry (soft) around the edges and at f/8.0 and 1/125th it really shouldn't have been. It might be the lens, or it might have been simply that 1/125 wasn't fast enough. Did you use a tripod? If not, there's the first thing you need to buy.

The second image is an equally beautiful scene. You have blown all the highlights out of your sky. There's a few things you can do to fix this. Firstly, you should look at your histogram to check for blown highlights when you take the photo. If they're blown, consider using a graduated neutral density filter...verrry handy little thing. You can also take two images; one exposed for the sky and the other for the foreground and blend the two in Photoshop...but a ND Grad filter is easier. Shooting in RAW mode can also be handy ...that's one of the first things to learn about after you've mastered your camera.

Keep shooting!

[tiredoffilm]

Really like the last shot, crying out for the person in shot to have skimmed a stone across that still water, that would have been awesome! Nice shots though, I agree about the Horizons, easy to fix.

[DrFil]

1 and 2 are soft, as mentioned, and oversaturated a bit. maybe the oversaturation is only a problem though because they're soft though. 3 is by far my favorite out of the group. good job.

[Bubbamark]

Thanks for the great advice everyone! I will definetly be working all this into my shooting! I do have a tripod just didn't have it with in the first 2 pictures. I have been messing around in RAW and the first 2 pictures were actually done in RAW. I am very new to using it so I don't know many tricks to using it yet. The last 3 pictures were taken with the kit lens and edited very little in gimp! Still learning all the features on gimp. I really have been trying to figure out how to use sharpening features but can't seem to figure out how they work the correct way.

Again thanks for the great advice!!

Also wanted to ask, with my Tamron lens I don't seem to get very crisp shots. I seem to get better shots with the kit lens. Is it just due to the larger telephoto lens being on the cheaper side or could it be something I am doing wrong with the bigger zoom lens?

[penodr]

Nice work on 2 and 4, fix the horizons like the others mentioned and you have some nice shots there.

Dave

[tiredoffilm]

Try doing a focus test on the Tamron, it may be a little out. search here on the forum for how to do it.

[SwingBopper]

Hmmm, I don't see a horizon problem in 2, I don't even see a horizon. Agree on 3 & 4 though and agree this is a nice series well composed in general.

[Speedie]

Originally Posted by SwingBopper

Hmmm, I don't see a horizon problem in 2, I don't even see a horizon.

Looking at the cars and road on the left, the image looks to be tilted to the right a little.

[penodr]

Originally Posted by SwingBopper

Hmmm, I don't see a horizon problem in 2, I don't even see a horizon. Agree on 3 & 4 though and agree this is a nice series well composed in general.

Maybe not, I tend to tilt all my photos a bit so I tend to look at the horizon very closely and I guess I might be seeing a problem where there is none.

[Walczak Photo]

I don't really care for the first shot, but the rest aren't too bad. I am seeing a few newbie mistakes though. As already mentioned, you're horizon is tilted in several of the shots. This is an -easy- fix and should be taken care of in editing. If you are using Photoshop, you can either fix it in RAW (assuming you shot RAW) or you can use the "Ruler" tool and then Rotate...the specific info on how to do that is somewhere around on this site (as well as on many others) so I'll let you look that up on your own.

Next to that, the second thing I'm seeing is you have your horizons split right down the middle of the shots...another common newbie mistake. Here I would suggest reading up on "The rule of thirds" and then crop the images accordingly (and keep it in mind next time you're shooting).

You're second shot is by far the best...I wouldn't mess with that one too much at all. The other shots though also tend to have "too much space". Not sure what lens you're using, but I think you're going a little too wide for the subject matter with most of these. Again here you could easily crop these so I think it's more a matter of recognizing composition than anything else.

Over all your exposure and colors look pretty good and the images are fairly sharp so I'd just pay closer attention to the compositional aspects of the scene when shooting. Put a little more forethought into what each shot is actually about.

Just my $.02 worth...welcome to the forums .
Jim

[acchildress]

I have a comment on the first one. Maybe I'll look closer at the others later.

I like the color, it looks realistic. But to me the composition is wrong. There is nothing to show me which way is up. With the branch so horizontal I have the urge to turn my monitor 90 deg. to make it a shot of a vertical tree. This shot needs a piece of ground to anchor the shot or the angle of the shot rotated to get it away from horizontal.

Or maybe it's just me.

[seafarer456]

for #2 i would crop some of the water out. I really like the contrast between the white sky and colored leaves.