Out for a drive

I found a new area to get some shots of the mountains and scenery and would like some input on how they turned out. I used my husbands Nikon to see how good it is.

I like the colour/saturation in 1 and 3... 2 looks a bit flat. They also seem to be about the sky/open spaces not the mountains? To get really picky, the breaks in the horison line seem a bit distracting in the first one, not sure what's going on with the tracks in the third... I think all three could use a "point of interest" for the eye to rest on... mine keeps wandering
And, btw, that's some very good looking country you're photographing - and you picked the right time of day too!

Other than being a bit flat these are really nice photos. I would have a little more balance between sky and earth. Not 50 50 by any means, just a bit more. Often a shot like this from ground level works.

1 is great, 3 is good, and 2 is a little lack luster. I'd try doing some heavier (or some if you didn't do any) pp work on 2 to maybe darken the foreground a bit, and enhance the sun coming through the clouds (maybe just darkening the non lit areas of the clouds) and probably some slight added contrast to the whole image.

Watch out for your shadow getting into images with wide angle lenses, is that the top of your head at the bottom of image 3.

Image 2, in camera meter has been tricked by the very bright sun coming through the cloud, it is worth spot metering for this type of image to cope with the dynamic range limits of your camera sensor. Reasonably easy to fix in pp but worth experimenting with, especially if you would like to add people into this sort of background.

I agree with the earlier point about too much sky, somehow the composition loses impact.

However it looks an amazing place to live, I can see why you wanted to capture it on film, have you considered trying a panorama crop?

KrazyKoala wrote in post #13392775
I like the colour/saturation in 1 and 3... 2 looks a bit flat. They also seem to be about the sky/open spaces not the mountains? To get really picky, the breaks in the horison line seem a bit distracting in the first one, not sure what's going on with the tracks in the third... I think all three could use a "point of interest" for the eye to rest on... mine keeps wandering
And, btw, that's some very good looking country you're photographing - and you picked the right time of day too!

Thanks for your comment. The only lens I had with me was a 18-55mm. I borrowed my husbands Nikon D5100 to try it out and that's the only lens he has. So I wasn't able to zoom in further to get the mountain range. Point taken on not having a clear subject in these. I was just trying to capture the mountains and the clouds in the sky. Also wanted to test my husbands camera out for him. I was able to get these shots at just the right time of day at least.

Sunset1971 wrote in post #13393244
Other than being a bit flat these are really nice photos. I would have a little more balance between sky and earth. Not 50 50 by any means, just a bit more. Often a shot like this from ground level works.

Thanks for your CC. I wasn't able to get much lower unless I wanted the grass to be the main focus in these shots. I'll keep that in mind on getting a little more foreground in the shots next time. This is an amazing area and I will go back when the weather permits.

andrew_patterson wrote in post #13397483
1 is great, 3 is good, and 2 is a little lack luster. I'd try doing some heavier (or some if you didn't do any) pp work on 2 to maybe darken the foreground a bit, and enhance the sun coming through the clouds (maybe just darkening the non lit areas of the clouds) and probably some slight added contrast to the whole image.

Thanks for your suggestions and comment. I'll give that a try on photo #2.

Winco wrote in post #13398072
Watch out for your shadow getting into images with wide angle lenses, is that the top of your head at the bottom of image 3.

Image 2, in camera meter has been tricked by the very bright sun coming through the cloud, it is worth spot metering for this type of image to cope with the dynamic range limits of your camera sensor. Reasonably easy to fix in pp but worth experimenting with, especially if you would like to add people into this sort of background.

I agree with the earlier point about too much sky, somehow the composition loses impact.

However it looks an amazing place to live, I can see why you wanted to capture it on film, have you considered trying a panorama crop?

Yes that is my head. I thought I cropped that out! I'll try spot metering or get a GND filter kit for my husbands camera for the next time out. Maybe I can try a different crop to balance out the sky and foreground also.

I worked on some of the problems that were pointed out. Are these better? Reduced the size for the web so the quality isn't too good.

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Here's the last edit for the original photos. I cropped out some of the sky and the shadow from my head.

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I think the edit's are a dramatic improvement.

I suspect the first one of the edits looked better in real life? You can see the sun illuminating the hills in the middle ground, and I bet when you saw it, it was spectacular.

The trick with these is to nail the exposure for the main part of the image, neutral density filters and light meters can help, but getting to grips with how your camera meter reads the light and using 'bracketing' would be my first suggestion before adding more kit to learn.

Winco wrote in post #13403127
I think the edit's are a dramatic improvement.

I suspect the first one of the edits looked better in real life? You can see the sun illuminating the hills in the middle ground, and I bet when you saw it, it was spectacular.

The trick with these is to nail the exposure for the main part of the image, neutral density filters and light meters can help, but getting to grips with how your camera meter reads the light and using 'bracketing' would be my first suggestion before adding more kit to learn.

Thanks, I do too, except for the loss of quality. Yes, the scene in that shot was spectacular for sure. Too bad I wasn't able to capture what I saw. I'll keep working on learning the metering system and try to figure out a way to see the slider better. It's hard to tell when I'm in the middle or just below etc... I adjusted the diopter as much as possible and it's still fuzzy. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out.

I think in certain respects they are better, however with 1 I loved the original (Maybe the clouds could have been brightened hair however) but the edit of it not so much (particularly the crop and colour atlerations).

Also with 3, while the crops in the original were too red and imo needed to be a bit closer to orange, the edit is far too green (and again, not a fan of the crop).

Also the edit of 2 is good although I liked the warmth in the original, but I hope you don't mind that I took my own stab at doing an edit of it to show you sorta what I had in mind.

Hi Lonestar,

I'm just at the photography 101 level so I'm not going to criticize except to say they're nice pics and you live around some amazing country.

Not sure what the field is but it looks an agricultural crop of some kind. Those buildings in pic 2 could be a farm house etc which brings along the potential for some real neat wrecky stuff.

My curiosity makes me wonder like the view is looking south and down the valley from the buildings. Betcha it's gorgeous and that could be a big reason why those buildings are there. Might be worth having a look next time your in that area.