Critique - Acura

The first was taken with my 16-35. The second was taken with a 70-200 and is a stitched composite of 17 images.

Photo from s1a1om's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (920455)

Photo from s1a1om's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (920238)

The long shot is a little too long in my opinion. Too much forest. If you moved the car to be framed by the two trees, it would be a more pleasing composition. Did you add the vignette? Or was it a consequence of the setting?

In the close up, you have just the opposite: crop is too tight. A general rule is to leave room for framing, even if you don't intend to print it.

There's something interesting going on in the foreground. It looks like you applied a blur. But it's not uniform. You missed the part near the rear wheel. In the middle it bleeds into the background. All in all it looks like it's not part of the picture.

I recommend cloning out the dings. We don't need to be reminded of kids in parking lots.

a crop between the two would be best. Nice lighting on the first, but it just has too much else wise competing. So it looses impact. Second shot is a good attempt at a low shot but again, background is competing too much. Basic elements are good on both but to be a standout image it needs to be less busy.... in my opinion.

First is too wide and too simple on vignetting. But it is triggering imagination picture. "Went for a pee" comes instantly.

Second is on failure side, with some heavy and distracting OOF piece on the bottom. It doesn't look natural.
All I see is what car is used and it has some dark spots and some other damages.
Is this second one for Craigslist listing? It shows car as is.

joedlh wrote in post #18654037
The long shot is a little too long in my opinion. Too much forest. If you moved the car to be framed by the two trees, it would be a more pleasing composition. Did you add the vignette? Or was it a consequence of the setting?

In the close up, you have just the opposite: crop is too tight. A general rule is to leave room for framing, even if you don't intend to print it.

There's something interesting going on in the foreground. It looks like you applied a blur. But it's not uniform. You missed the part near the rear wheel. In the middle it bleeds into the background. All in all it looks like it's not part of the picture.

I recommend cloning out the dings. We don't need to be reminded of kids in parking lots.

Thanks for the comments I agree with them for the most part. I did apply a vignette to the first one in an attempt to make the background less distracting and draw the eye to the subject. It's also part of why I tried the stitched composite to get a shallow depth of field (thinking it would add some separation between the background and the subject)

I also agree that the blur in the second looks a bit off, but it was not a result post processing, but rather the shallow depth of field created by the stitched image. You can see in the image below, comparing the two, that the odd blur is from two objects in the foreground. I was shooting up a hill and they were a fair ways in front of the car, which made them blur.

Croasdail wrote in post #18654290
a crop between the two would be best. Nice lighting on the first, but it just has too much else wise competing. So it looses impact.

Thanks, that's part of why I added the vignette, to draw the eye away from the background and focus it on the subject.

And thanks for the comment on the lighting. It was natural light. There was a gap in some trees behind me that opened up to an overcast sky, which cast a nice light on the car. It's the reason I stopped and took some photos.

kf095 wrote in post #18654318
First is too wide and too simple on vignetting. But it is triggering imagination picture. "Went for a pee" comes instantly.

Second is on failure side, with some heavy and distracting OOF piece on the bottom. It doesn't look natural.
All I see is what car is used and it has some dark spots and some other damages.
Is this second one for Craigslist listing? It shows car as is.

Thanks. I was debating cloning out the damage, but decided against putting the time in to do it. I knew it would get some negative comments on here and I probably should have cloned it out before posting.

What do you mean "too simple on vignetting"? I love learning new techniques. What could I have done differently? Below is the image without the vignette added. Note that there is still some vignette caused by trees behind me shading the light from getting onto the trees to the side of (and behind) the car.