Please HELP Im a totall n00b

Hello everyone. Im really new to this had my camera for about a week now. Please give me some feed back as to how I am doing so far and how I can get better...All these were shot with a Sigma 1.4

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#1 is really good, because it's right to the point, well lighted and exposed and the background is under control, and it has good 3-dimensionality.

#2 is comparitively dull.

#3 is a nice candid portrait spoiled by an out-of-control background.

#4 and #5 have no redeeming qualities - the less said, the better.

Ditto on 1-4.

The tree might benfit from a lower point of view, showing the entire tree, including base, with a stormy sky.

these are pretty damn good for a noob, u must not be a noob to regular SLR's

Hey thanks for the feed back so far guys...Yes I am completely new to this. this my first SLR ever and I have never really touched point and shoot cameras. quick question about number 4 no matter what I did as far as trying to balance the bright sky and the fence and shed witch were in the shade of a big tree...my question is is there any way to balance a not very well lit subject or foreground with a much brighter background?

Scattershot wrote in post #5461941
.my question is is there any way to balance a not very well lit subject or foreground with a much brighter background?

Just make sure that the history gram do not fall off one side or the other (it is in this case). Subject matter is different subject entirely or lack thereof!

Regards.
Victor

Scattershot wrote in post #5461941
Hey thanks for the feed back so far guys...Yes I am completely new to this. this my first SLR ever and I have never really touched point and shoot cameras. quick question about number 4 no matter what I did as far as trying to balance the bright sky and the fence and shed witch were in the shade of a big tree...my question is is there any way to balance a not very well lit subject or foreground with a much brighter background?

I assume that your concern about "balance" between the shadowed fence and shed and the brighter sky is that you want the shadowed areas to be brighter and the brighter areas to be darker.

OK - there are several ways to do this at the time the picture is taken. If shooting with a Picture Style of B & W, you can apply a yellow, orange, red or green filter. The yellow, orange and red filters would provide progressively greater darkening effects on a blue sky. If the sky is solid white clouds, forget that.

When shooting in color with any of the other Picture Styles, a flash can be used to brighten shadow areas (this is called "fill" light), or a large reflector can be use to reflect direct sunlight into shadowed areas. Use of flash or reflectors is not of much help in the #4 shot because the shadowed subjects are too large and too far from the camera.

In some cases, when you are lucky, all you have to do is take your shots at a different time of day. If a different sun position allows you to get a darker sky and brighter subject, then just wait until that time of day to do your shooting. I have very often used that strategy to get what I want, even though it often requires you to go to the scene at inconvenient times of the day.

Last, there is post processing in something like Photoshop. Depending on the scene, that might be very difficult. When the Selection Layers can be created easily, then the rest of the process is easy. In the case at hand, I would not want to tackle it.

Another easy way to get better balance is to wait for a really dull, overcast day. If you are in London or Seattle, no problem. On such a day, the balance will be inherently better - not so extreme as here.

Thanks Robert I will definitely have to give that B & W thing a try this weekend...

As usual, I generally agree with what Robert's had to say, and particularly admire #1. The flowers fall across the diagonal and it works very well.

Re #2: as Robert says, it's comparatively dull. But it's important to know why, and what to try next time. What I think you needed to do here was isolate the main flower against the background more (not so much on top of other flowers), get in closer to it, and place it in accordance with the Rule of Thirds (I highly recommend a quick google if not familiar).

#3: I quite like this, and the poster of a dress on the back of the door does convey an impression of someone feminine and fashion-conscious, but the area top left is not out of focus enough to blend in abstractly, yet too indistinct to satisfy (ladder up to a bunk bed?), which is a shame as I find the darker area to be an interesting compositional element. Posture, hair, expression and exposure are all good.

#4: main issues pretty well covered already. High Dynamic Range capture and processing techniques are a final option for this situation... again something you can find with a quick google, but not worth getting into until you're pretty comfortable with all the day-to-day aspects of photography.

#5: the tree itself is interesting, but the background just isn't. It looks like a suburban area where it may be impossible to eliminate the light poles and roads in the background. As mentioned, some interest in the sky can really lift such a shot. For some ideas, there's another current C&C thread - see the top picture by Kyle here: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=497714 .

Cheers, Tony

Tony thanks for the input and you are absolutely right about the tree. It looks so cool when driving by but there is a stop light and a street light right next to it ...but I will keep trying...maybe I can get it on a day when the sky looks a little cooler.