Thoughts Please?

Me again with my noob questions...

Stuck up in Scotland for the week with work, the weather is awful! So went out and tried to take some photos in the reported 90mph winds...

I tried to blur out the lighthouse and bring the bench in to focus, I now wish I had put this in full manual mode rather than TV and manual focus. I shot this on 1/200 (unsure of the aperture but was a minimum or 4.5

Under exposed, over exposed, please be as insulting as you like, im desperate to learn. Please remember this was taken in high winds and know it a little blurred!

For the record, Im fairly happy with it, but im easily please so very interested in what other people think!

I am a newb as well, so I will give you my newb opinion, and hopefully someone can chime in and explain why I feel this way about this photo....

I have looked at what must be a thousand photos on this site by professional photographers. All of them look amazing really. This photo, while I can't put my finger on it, just looks like a snapshot.

It's something I would take. It's a nice photo, but not something I would blow up and put on my wall.

I am sure however, if a pro photographer was there, with the same equipment, he would have taken something print worthy.

because I also want to learn, can someone explain to me why this photo gives off that impression?

Well.....I'm not anything near an expert but here goes.

First off, what lens was this taken with? A 100mm focal length (for example) will provide a better background blur at wide apertures than say a 50mm.

Also, I think it's under exposed.
For this kind of shot I would have used my 70-200mm on AV, wide open, and bumped the ISO just enough to hand hold without blur (I assume the wind precluded the use of a tripod).
USE THE HISTOGRAM! to check that you're exposing to the right slightly.

(I'm thinking a scene like this might look good converted to B&W in PP.)

That's my advice; it's free. Take it for what it's worth and good luck.
Cheers

A few things pop out to me. 1. When the weather is that dismal out, I put away the camera. Tough to get a good shot of anything under those conditions. 2. The horizon isn't quite level which is a necessity for landscape work. 3. It appears underexposed. Looks like you focused on the bench it's not the focal point of your image because it's so underexposed. 4. Doesn't look overly sharp anywhere in the frame.

dave

Me personally, I would have shot the Lighhouse instead.

If I were going to try to do what you describe I would use my 14-24mm at it's widest f-stop.
Second I would use a tripod, weighted and really slow down the shutter speed 4-6 seconds and focus on the light house as my subject ie get closer.
Cheers

I think it may have had potential (have potential if you can reshoot it). The fence forms a nice triangle leading the eye. And it kind of has a moody feel to it. However, it's mostly out of focus, and underexposed. You should be using at least f8 or f11 for landscapes. And as mentioned the horizon needs to be corrected. I would also crop out the black dot in the middle; looks like maybe an airplane or a bird.

Photo a bit too dark, I would shoot the lighthouse instead, the bench is a bit boring. But good try!