Sunrise, mountains, ocean and a beginner

First of all I'm new to this hobby, I'm still a beginner. Have always loved photography though, and a few months ago i decided to buy a camera and start learning so that i can get good at this beautiful artform. Been reading some books and experimenting a lot with different cameras and ideas.
I saw some interesting "weather play" at 0500 in the morning when i was on my way to work last week, and i knew i had to get my camera. A sunrise, the ocean, heavy rain, really grey dark skies, blue clear skies and snowy mountains all in one frame. My friends and family are praising me for the photo, saying it's beautiful and all that. It might even get printed 100cm wide for framing (Not by me). Of course it's fun to hear all the positive feedback, but I'm realistic, they don't have any knowledge at all when it comes to photography. So now i want to hear what the experts have to say. I used a Canon M50 with the EF-M 15-45mm, for the particular shoot i used AWB, 1/3200 shutter, F3.5, ISO100 -2.
So, what do you think? What should i have done differently? Whats good and whats bad?

I am glad to hear your enthusiasm for the craft. You will never stop learning if you keep trying, experimenting and take many shots. Over time you will develop a style and your skills will improve.

Asking for advice from friends and family can be like asking them if you are overweight (hopefully you are not, only an example). Many will say you look great or fine but your doctor may tell you something different. If you want praise, ask your family. If you want advice, go elsewhere.

Having said that, here on this site, you will still get both. Some people will love the photo, others not so much. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Okay, for me, what do "I" think"? You took the photo directly into the sun. That portion of the photo lost all detail because it is so bright. The drawback is now the rest of the photo is really dark. What you saw is different than what the camera "saw". Your eyes can see more than the camera can.

Look at this post: LINK (also done with an M-series). The top photo is what the photographer saw while the lower photo is what the camera saw. To get the photo to replicate what you saw, there is work to it that is needed. Very rarely, while beginning, is a shot that is captured ready for printing. Read the comments to see what was done to get the photo looking as it is in the top frame.

For now a couple things: Get the horizon straight. This shot is low left, high right. The water would be running off to the left side. The M Series had a built in level or grid lines to help with this. Try not to have the horizon dead center (if able). Do you want to emphasize the sky, the mountains, the water? There is something to be said about foreground, middle-ground and background that makes an interesting photo. But not all of these elements are equal. If you were to use a higher aperture (8, 11, 16), your shutter speed would be slower and possibly more information would be available.

If you do start post-processing (as in the linked post), shoot your photos in RAW format to save as much data as possible. During processing, you can lower the intensity of the sun (decrease highlights) and lighten the darker areas (increase shadows).

You may want to follow some other threads here to get some ideas: EF-M Users and Sunsets.

Personally I wouldn't have the photo printed. It is something to learn from and move forward from here.

I apologize if my critique is a bit harsh but most of us will admit to have been in the same position you are.

Good luck with your journey.

Gart

Gart gave sound advice. I won't repeat it. I have two suggestions, however. Neither has to do with gear.

1. Timing is everything. It takes experience to capture the moment, which will have the result be striking to the eye. With people, the moment can be a fraction of a second. With sunsets/sunrises, you have the benefit of an image that unfolds over minutes. But you have to get in position in time. This shot might have been more dramatic if you had taken it before the sun rose over the horizon. That way, you could have avoided the blown out area around the sun. It's hard to say because there are many factors at work. For example, the cloud bank on the right might have obscured it and only moved out of the way when you took the shot.

2. There's a sunset and a sunrise everywhere in the world once every 24 hours (except at the poles). I did a Google search on "sunset photo" and got 361 million hits. So every sunset/sunrise photographer is facing a lot of competition. What makes a shot unique and dramatic is what's in the foreground. A dramatic sunrise adds to the allure. You have some foreground interest in your image. A telephoto lens would have drawn it in closer for greater impact.

Welcome to photography and to the forum.

I agree with Gart's comments above. I immediately saw the uneven horizon, centered horizon and other points that he raised. The one point that I'll add is that it is possible to shoot directly into the sun and (with some post-processing) still reveal the details that will be in the dark areas. But(!) to do this, you must be careful not to overexpose the brightest spot (the sun). Once the bright areas are blown out, there is *nothing* that can be done to recover it.

Your interest in this picture is encouraging because you seem to have an eye for a good picture. With practice, you'll be able to capture the things that you see with the tools in your hand.

Regarding your camera, it's a good camera and can serve you well. I'm fortunate to have quite a bit of equipment. I also have an M-series body and it's one of my favorites to use (for travel).

Keep it up!

Awe geese.... I am so worried now... am I not only fat, but I ask my wife about my work often... and believe it or not, after 35 years of marriage I can tell what she thinks of my work... no matter what she says.

Your question about this image is a complex one. First of all, never shoot to someone else likes or dislikes. Just like I could care less if anyone else thinks I'm fat or not, I live my life, they don't. Same with photography, shoot what makes you smile when you look at it 1 week later, 1 month later or 10 years later. If it provokes good memories about that moment. May not mean or resonate with another single living soul, but who the heck cares. So take what other have to say with a huge grain of salt.

What people are really good at here though is helping with the technical aspects. Some real good basics can be learned here... such as be mindful of horizons, or how to lower highlights in an editing software, or why or how to shoot raw.

some of my own recommendations is in shots like this decide if it is worth sacrificing the shadows to preservice the highlights. If your unsure, take three shots - a stop under and a stop over, and one that the meter says is right. Also learn to spot meter as well.

Also, a "good" shot needs a subject. And this shot while interesting, the "subject" doesn't jump out at me. Is it the sunset... or is it something on the point there.

What I do like is your got an exposure where the sun never completely blows out. There is subtle hints that detail still exists in that image.

Would I call this "art".... no. Would I consider a keeper to remind yourself of that moment... absolutely. Keep at it.

Now I've got to go back and re-evaluate the meaning of life again in the context of being a fat photographer... Should I be feeling shame... and don't know it?

Thanks for all your feedback. Much appreciated!

Like you say Gart, friends and family wont be objective. That's why I'm posting it here, and that's also why i don't get high on myself, my feet is well planted on the ground. And I'm not the one considering making a print, it's my boss actually. And i don't think of your critique as harsh, i welcome it!
But to me, a photograph really doesn't need to replicate what the human eye sees, not at all. Of course it's neccesary under some circumstances.
And now to the uneven horizon... That's just embarrasing, so, so embarrasing. Yes, I'm new to this, but that's not an excuse. I knew this! I'm actually sorry, wont happen again.
In college, or upper high school, called videregående in Norway i studied Media and Communication for 3 years. That involves everything from making webpages to editing video to journalism and also photography. Unfortunately when i went to school, video was my passion, not photography. But still, i know all about post-prossesing and RAW. I consider myself an expert in Photoshop, but got a long way to go in Lightroom though.
Thanks again for your comments, will probably be posting again, and who knows, might not be an uneven horizon then

Update:

It will get printed, my boss insist... It will hang in the lunchroom. I guess it will be a reminder of where i started

Jtorpeide wrote in post #19068622
Update:

It will get printed, my boss insist... It will hang in the lunchroom. I guess it will be a reminder of where i started

Since your boss insists on printing this picture and hanging it in the lunchroom, there is still a lot you can do in post processing to improve this picture and you don't need to be an expert in Photoshop to do it. You've already been given a lot of great advice which I won't rehash so from here I would lift the shadows to give the picture some depth. Right now it looks very flat because it has little to no details showing to give it dimension. Obviously straighten the horizon, from there I'd crop the bottom portion with the rocks and tree limbs; they're not adding anything to the scene and cropping would move your horizon line from the center of your frame. Then I'd lift the shadows, and increase the contrast and clarity some and see how it looks at that point. But that's just my two cents.

Jtorpeide wrote in post #19068622
Update:

It will get printed, my boss insist... It will hang in the lunchroom. I guess it will be a reminder of where i started

Do you have any software to process this image with and what format was it shot in? Before he has the print made, you can still do some work with it, primarily pushing your Shadow detail up a bit to reveal some detail in the city and background mountains. It's entirely probable that your boss is viewing the image on a monitor that is too bright to be displaying photos accurately and is going to be thoroughly disappointed in a print. Before having it printed at a size that would be hung in the room, I'd urge them to get a simple 4x6 'proof' print made first since those are reasonably cheap.

Back to the image itself, I would also agree w/ Galt as a pretty good breakdown of things and just add a little more detail to a couple of items:

- With landscape scenes, you will generally want to have a fair amount of detail through the entire image; which translates to "more Depth of Field" and is accomplished with a smaller aperture (larger f/ number). Shooting between f/8 and f/16 is the general sweet spot range to be looking at. There are a number of starting posts here on the site that cover that stuff in much more detail.

- Handheld shooting of landscapes can certainly *be* done, but one of the reasons most are shot from a tripod is that shutter speed is one of your primary light controls, related to my point above. Smaller apertures require getting more light by lengthening the exposure rather than keeping a short exposure to mitigate hand shake. If you're likely to hit situations like this going forward, get yourself a middling travel tripod and just toss it in the trunk. This point can break out into a whole rats nest of other discussion around size, cost, material, etc; but, a simple mid-range, knockoff brand travel unit should support your M just fine and offer you some good function while you're learning whether you're even going to make these sorts of shots often enough to spend for a real, solid unit.

- Really get back into knowing and understanding the exposure triangle and what effect each of those has with digital media; it sounds like you've done in the past, but may want to just brush back up on them. Getting to know your meter and really taking to heart how it works will help avoid this type of underexposure you see in the above scene in the future.


If you're willing to give access to the source file for the image, though a Dropbox link or other share service, and give the Ok, I and some others can show you some edit suggestions that you could use for figuring out how you want to handle results like this in the future.

Your framing is good, horizon aside , and one of the biggest things to have down for photography. Being able to identify and display your subject well is much more important than "how" you capture it, for the most part. So, you're already "up" there, just need to keep working at it and practicing to get those results YOU want! Keep at it and keep sharing/critiquing.

I work with graphic design at a Stonemasonry, we make benches, tables, kitchens and tombstones (Not the kind of tombstones people are used to seeing, rather pieces of art. It's the culture here in Norway). So I have Photoshop and Illustrator CC, always the newest. And Omega Composer for typography and plotters, which is what i do. And Lightroom CC of course, but that's private. So my work screen is made for graphical design and to show the correct colors (Ridiculously expensive). I have already done some changes in PS.
Funny thing, i always use RAW when taking photos like this, but this was the day after Norways National Day, 17 Mai, and i turned off RAW for that day since i would probably end up with hundreds of photos. And of course i forgot to turn it back on for these shots... It was at 5 in the morning though
And btw, i used a tripod. The fast shutter was just to experiment.
I know about the exposure triangel and all that, but it's a long time since i went to school now, so i listen to audiobooks and podcasts about photography to gain back all my knowledge, and perhaps some new knowledge

I would play with cropping some off the bottom. I just played with it a little just now, and was surprised how it lightened up the image considerably. The bottom right seems to weigh on the image... in my opinion. Sounds like your part of an interesting business. Cheers

I didn't read the comments above yet, but I'll keep it simple...

I think a 16:9-ish crop would look better. I also would play with the lightening the shadows to give more detail to the dark areas. Lastly, if you wanted a more dramatic look, you could tinker with the white balance and color sliders. You could turn that sunset into a purple, orange, blue, etc color very easily if that's something you like.