Feedback needed

Hi,

I am just starting out and I am taking some photos. Please let me know what I need to work on.

Thank you.

Welcome to the forum. The folks here are helpful and there is rarely bitterness, as the moderators keep a close eye for members behaving badly. Having said that, you will get honest opinion from experienced photographers. If you're not ready for it, you might take it as negativity. It's not meant that way. Now, on to your photo.

A sunset and a sunrise happens every 24 hours on the planet, except at near the poles. I'm not going out on a limb when I say that every photographer has taken them at some time in life. I did a Google search on the term "sunset photo" and got 824,000,000 hits. This is a long way of saying that in order for your sunset photo to stand it, it must be remarkable. That is: technically perfect and having something interesting in the scene that's not the sun.

Your shot has a line of trees. That's something. But they're not remarkable. Still, if you printed it large and put it on a wall, people will like it. Before you do, clone out the dark blob in the sky on the left and the orange flare on the bottom left. Also the white spot upper left from the sun.

There are some technical points to make. There's an orange bloom around the sun below the tree line. There's also color banding in the sky and water. I see from the exif data that this was taken on a Pixel 2 at f1.8 and 1/23256 sec exposure. You might be able to do away with the bloom if you shot at a narrower aperture. Something like f/8, for example. Can you set the aperture on a Pixel 2? But a more effective approach might have been to wait for the sun to set below the tree line. As for the banding, I have a feeling that you're running up against the limits of a phone camera. It could be the processing algorithm. If so, you might not be able to do anything about it. It also happens if the jpeg compression is too extreme. Again, your phone might not give you a choice.

Smart phone cameras have improved greatly. But they're still limited by small optics, small sensors, and limited user control. If you want to become serious about photography, you will want to acquire a more capable camera and also educate yourself. The people on this forum can help you.

mariay wrote in post #18929077
Please let me know what I need to work on.

Hosted photo: posted by mariay in
./showthread.php?p=189​29077&i=i129624054
forum: Critique Corner

I love this photo from the standpoint of subject matter and composition. . The colors are beautiful, the sun and the reflection are placed nicely in the frame. . The placement of the sun relative to the treeline horizon is perfect, in my opinion. . It is a beautifully composed image of a beautiful scene.

However, there are some rather severe technical issues. . There are the distractions that pop out at you because they are so very distracting and incongruous with the aesthetic. . These are the dark blob in the sky, the white blob in the sky, the orange glowing thing near the bottom of the frame, and the thin white line at the bottom of the frame. . I am interested in knowing why you decided to leave these things in the image instead of cloning them out.

The other issue is the graininess and banding that is particularly evident in the sky. Instead of a nice even smooth area of blue color that gradually transitions from orange to blue and gradually darkens toward the top of the frame, there are sudden shifts that appear as bands. . Also, there is graininess - we know that the sky doesn't have little pockets of darker color in it, yet the way the sky is rendered in your image shows hundreds, if not thousands, of little blobs and grains that are darker than the surrounding areas. . Such graininess is also extremely evident in the orange water nearer the bottom of the frame. . These areas should be rendered very smoothly, the way they looked in real life.

Another thing that I find unappealing is the extreme vignette (darkening) at the upper corners of the image. . In real life, the sky was the same color at the corners as it was at top center, yet in your image the corners are much darker than the center. . I think with images like this it is best to stay as true to the real life scene as possible. . The vignetting is probably due to the optics you were using - the lens built into your camera.

I suspect that these technical issues are due to the limitations of the gear that you were using, and would be far less exaggerated if you had captured the image with a high end camera with a large, modern sensor with top-shelf dynamic range.

I am sure there are things you can do with software to minimize the graininess and banding.

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What Tom said....

I think your composition is fine. It's a pretty scene. Unfortunately from a pure photographic standpoint, your Pixal 2 wasn't up to the task. These are demanding conditions for pure cameras, less alone one that part times as a phone. Nothing much "you" can do to improve this... except if you could take the image as a raw. You phone is converting the image into a JPEG likely, basically dumbing it down, and that is where you are getting things like the banding in the colors.

I have an iPhone 7 plus, and on it if I want to get a shot that is above a snap shot I use an app called "ProCam" that gives me full manual control over the phone and allows me to save photos in raw. It was either free or dirt cheap. Can't remember. But if you want to explore and learn about photography using your phones camera, I would look into what is available on the store that allows you more control over the Pixel's camera.

The first impression right off the bat is liking the color, quickly followed by two thoughts. One, what else could have been added for more interest. And dust on the sensor is a question whether or not it happened.

mdvaden wrote in post #18934973
The first impression right off the bat is liking the color, quickly followed by two thoughts. One, what else could have been added for more interest. And dust on the sensor is a question whether or not it happened.

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Dust on the sensor .... of a cell phone!

That is something that I have never considered. . I guess I assumed that because lenses cannot be changed, and that part of the phone is all sealed up, that it wouldn't ever be an issue. . But I could be wrong about that. . I suppose that if someone disassembled their phone in a dusty environment, it could be possible.

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I noticed the OP, who asked for a critique, never returned to the thread, after some people here took a fair amount of time to helpfully answer him.

medd63 wrote in post #18950830
I noticed the OP, who asked for a critique, never returned to the thread, after some people here took a fair amount of time to helpfully answer him.

Good point. Everyone likes feedback, critiquers as well as critique requesters.