Landscapes

I could use some critiques of these shots. My main concern is the haziness of the zoomed in shot. Was this just a bad day? Was there something I could have done before I took the shot? Is there anything I can do with the shot now? The wide angle shot was taken with my Canon 10-22mm and the zoomed in was taken with a 70-200 2.8.

Shots are ok, but you have a lot of specs in your pictures... Whether it's your sensor or spots on the lens you have to get those removed before anything.

It was on the lens and thankfully not the sensor. I noticed it on the chairlift down. It was one of those "How could you have missed that?" moments that serves as a learning experience...hopefully​. I still have a lot to learn!

Edit: Now that I take another look, those spots might be on the sensor. But they were taken with an old body anyway.

The horizon seems tilted in the second.
Looks like haze in the air.
Circular polarizer might have helped.

Here is another one. I was going for the long depth of field with the submerged pebbles in focus. This one I have processed in Lightroom. I may have processed a little too much.

Again, I am a novice and just recently got Lightroom and Photoshop. If you don't mind, please include as much detain in your C & C as possible.

I like the last one. The first two seem too drab in comparison. However, I tend to be an "over-processor" myself.

I really like the last one too, except for the sky which looks too dark for me.

With regard to the last shot,... you may have overprocessed it a bit. Generally, try to enhance the image without causing it to look artificial.

Overall, pay a little more attention to composition. Each scene needs to have a primary subject that you want the viewer to notice, and arrange the rest of the composition to lead the viewer to that point. Some scenes will just naturally have good composition (luck), but others will require moving around a lot to decide which elements to include, and which will be a distraction.

While I like using a telephoto to pull out interesting portions of a scene, any haze will just be accentuated by the longer focal length.

Thank you, Jon. How do you determine if something is a distraction. Is is anything that pulls your attention away from the primary subject?

You probably want to avoid placing the horizon near center of the frame which is the classic "snapshot" type pic you see on Instagram all the time, unless it absolutely calls for it.
With the first two, there really isn't anything for the viewer to latch onto. Pretty scenes, but not a lot of color, depth, movement etc which spice up landscapes.
The last one is nicer, but as others have said, over processed.

Regarding what and what isn't a distraction, it really depends on what your subject is. For example, your bottom shot. If you wanted the colorful rocks to be your subject, then the really big empty dark blue sky distracts from it. In that case, you could crop out a lot of the sky, showing only a little bit for color contrast, and having the submerged pebbles more fill the frame.

IMHO, that is what makes landscapes so hard. With a portrait you know what the subject is...it's looking at you right in the face.
With a landscape, it is never that straight forward. You have to wait for the right time of day, you have to cut out the elements which don't add anything, you have to get on your belly or climb to the top of a mountain to get the right perspective, etc etc.

I see what you mean, Cali. Just scrolling so that most of the sky is off the screen makes a big difference. Thanks!

10mm Fan wrote in post #17358424
I see what you mean, Cali. Just scrolling so that most of the sky is off the screen makes a big difference. Thanks!

You got it!

Some of my best panoramas are actually crops of a single image. In this case, there simply is way too much sky. Once that's removed, not only does the composition look better, but the image looks more natural (i.e., not as heavily processed as the original version you posted, where the sky at the top of he image is much too dark).

When you are setting up a landscape shot, you know what is the most interesting facet of the scene. If you can't find something that is interesting,... you are in the wrong place. Once you pick out that 'subject', start figuring out how the viewer will react to what you show him/her. Generally, something in the foreground will be where the viewer starts, so you need to select a position that will place other objects along a 'path' that will lead the viewer into the scene, providing some interest along the way. This 'path' you select should eventually lead to whatever the main subject of the picture is. You can help guide the viewer with a bit of manipulation in postprocessing, such as lightening a portion, darkening others,... even cloning out elements that would lead the viewer away from the course you have laid out for him/her to follow.

So, you can see that the basic sequence is to identify the primary subject, scan the surrounding elements, determine the general path you want to create to the subject, then move around until you line up all the elements where they need to be.

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