Frosty sunrise outside of Gettysburg, PA

I had a hard time figuring out the exposure for this one.
Any CC very welcome.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/32171093@N00/8​204654342/

You did a good job capturing the colours in the sky. Composition wise however, it is lacking. Too much boring, underexposed grass in the foreground, random trees sticking out without any reason to be there. I see a path on the left. You could potentially have used that as a leading line, but as it is, it adds nothing to the shot.

Alternatively, you could have zoomed in and just focused on the "main" tree, silhouetted against the sun and sky.

Basically you have too much stuff in the frame that isn't helping your shot. I would have either moved closer or zoomed in to eliminate some of the useless things.

I'm not on a calibrated monitor at the moment so do take the following comment (and edit) with a grain of salt, but I think the shot could also do with a slight boost in vibrance/saturation to really bring out the colours.

Here's a rough example of what I'm talking about since you have image editing set to ok:

What is your subject?

Thank you Tom!

I've been into photography very intensely but only for the last few months, so all of this is very new to me.

This was an amazing morning, and the light reflecting from the sun into the frosty grass was beautiful.
I looked for leading lines and tried to use some sense of thirds or golden mean in the composition, but there wasn't a real subject except for the light.
Without going HDR I couldn't capture that light. I tried lying on the grass and different angles, the magic from that light simply didn't translate, and I need to learn HDR better since I can't seem to make it look natural.

Anyway thank you for taking the time!

Best

Eduardo

You're welcome Eduardo

The thing about sunrises/sets is that most often, the best photos of them have some point of interest other than the sky itself. It doesn't have to be something big or even something inherently interesting. It could just be a silhouette of a random every day object to capture the viewer's eye for example. There is nothing wrong with taking a photo without any subject beside the sky of course, your photography should be of whatever you want. I always take snapshots of nice sunrises/sets for my own collection simply to preserve the memory. Just don't expect other people to be impressed since they would not have been there and so don't have the memory to be evoked, and they have likely seen thousands of similar images.

As for HDR, if done right the results can be great, but I really dislike the over-the-top style which seems to be the trend nowadays. Personally, I use graduated filters or manual exposure blending (using layer masks in photoshop).

The last thing to remember is that without editing, the "magic" of the scene is very unlikely to show in your photos. Editing is a vital step in getting great photos, simply because the camera sensor cannot capture an exact replica what the eye can see. Your base file should be your starting point to recreating whatever you saw in your mind.

21eduleo wrote in post #15346892
Thank you Tom!

I've been into photography very intensely but only for the last few months, so all of this is very new to me.

This was an amazing morning, and the light reflecting from the sun into the frosty grass was beautiful.
I looked for leading lines and tried to use some sense of thirds or golden mean in the composition, but there wasn't a real subject except for the light.
Without going HDR I couldn't capture that light. I tried lying on the grass and different angles, the magic from that light simply didn't translate, and I need to learn HDR better since I can't seem to make it look natural.

Anyway thank you for taking the time!

Best

Eduardo

You don't need HDR to capture the light. Without any real subject except the light, you've ended up with a photo that isn't really very compelling. The light looks like it could be good - but you need to find a place with a good foreground interest that can compliment that light. The tree and the grass doesn't do it for me. Learning to use filters will take you further than HDR.

ufff, i wish I had that signature :]

Thank you for all the constructive criticism.
That's the only way we can learn and grow.
Very glad a place like this exists.

This is another one from the same morning.
I tried to follow rule of thirds and cropped accordingly.
Too tight?
I also played with levels and a bit of dodge and burn in CS5.

Again, any comments very welcome.

Happy holidays!

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/32171093@N00/8​270725641/

Again you did a good job on exposing. But you are still lacking a point of interest. The fence and its long shadows with the textured grass is interesting to me, but you aren't emphasizing it enough. Also, I don't find the crop works very well here; the fence wants more room on the sides.

Have a read through this page, it has some useful information:
http://photoinf.com …hotography_Tech​niques.htm

Also, you're shooting at f4.5 1/6400 ISO 200. Why?

Finally, you seem to be making the mistake a lot of people make with wide angle lenses; you're trying to fit everything in. The best advice I got when learning to use my 10-22 was to get as close as you can, get low, and get something right in the foreground (of course, these rules as with all rules, are meant to be broken. But learn to use them first).

Nice link Tom, I've never seen that one before. Thank you.