Newbie effort of a Pier in Venice, Florida

I would appreciate your comments and critiques of these photos of a pier in Venice, Fla. I was on vacation there last week and thought the pier made an interesting pattern. I'm a newbie to digital photography would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

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Hi fishbio and welcome to POTN. By any chance are you a marine biologist ?

Normally pier shots can be quite drab, repetitive and boring. But yours is none of that - it's a bit unique and eye catching in a special way. It's the way the "glowing water" laps around the piers at their bottoms. That's a type of highlight you normally don't see and you've captured it well. Some of the sand could stand a bit of cropping at the bottom - I think it detracts from the greater image.

The bottom shot is fair.... but #1 remains my favorite. Thanks for sharing. - Stu

I like how you've captured the pattern and depth of the pier. However, the supports are not as aharp as I would have liked to have seen having the look of being denoised at too high a setting. On the other hand it could just be jpeg compression.

Hi Fishbio,

When you do a long exposure to get the softness in the water, you have to take extra precautions to maintain sharpness in the rest of the elements. Namely, you need to use a tripod and set your camera to Mirror Lock-up and use a remote release cable (or timer release) to minimise camera shake. It helps if you choose a breezeless day too.

To get your 1/15 sec (or more) exposure, use a very small aperture (also to get everything into focus too) and a low ISO. In very bright situations, you may still need to use a ND filter as well.

Now if you're going to include a human factor as well....then you have problems! I like the idea of the two people in your shot, but they aren't going to be still for the slow exposure time and they'll look fuzzy...so here's what you do: Find two 7' long lengths of reinforcing bar and hammer it in through the tops of their heads so it travels down their spines and out there behinds...then it has to be hammered a fair way into the sand as well! Guaranteed to keep them still and - Hey - their pain will pass, but a good image lasts forever!

JK of course. You could just get them to lean on each other (shoulder-to-shoulder) to help steady them.

I would also make sure your subjects are dead centre too.

EDIT: And I'd clone over those patches at the top of each pier leg.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I was going for the silky water look. Camera was a Rebel XSi with kit lens. The first pic was 4 sec, f/20, ISO 100, and the second pic was 5 sec, f/8, ISO 100. I like the first one better. It's sharper and the DOF is greater. Probably should have used f/20 or so on all the shots (I took several). I used a tripod and the delayed timer but didn't do the mirror lockup. It was pretty breezy and my camera strap was flipping in the wind so I started holding the strap in my hand to minimize the shake. I told the girls to be very still but I kinda like Meaty0's suggestion with the rebar. I'm a novice on photo editing and will have to get my daughter to show me how to clone out the patches on the pier legs--I agree it would look better without them. Sapearl--I'm a fisheries biologist but I stick to freshwater fishes. Thanks again guys!

This shot makes a nice abstract. However, I would crop the sand completely out of the first and ditch the two women in the second. It just doesn't have visual interest to me.

Concur with others on softness in the pilings. However, the sand looks pretty sharp. I think maybe your camera was focused on that, which rendered more distant things out of focus rather than subject to movement blur.

Oh yeah, that's right! You'd probably do better with manual focus and f/11 or f/16 and focus about 1/3rd of the way into the image (3rd or 4th pylon). That will ensure a reasonable depth of focus. F/20 can cause diffraction effects and softness. Most lenses top out in sharpness at around f/8 to f/11.

Thanks for your suggestion, MeatyO.* I'll keep that in mind for next time.* I've made a few edits (based on suggestions received) of my original image and would like some input.* Which edit do you think is better, the cropped sand or no sand.* Both images have been sharpened a bit.Thanks for your help.

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that water is beautiful

hi fish bio! great image! id like to go there someday!

Thanks alyson and ekorff. It's a nice spot and there's a great restaurant (Sharky's) right next to the pier. Highly recommend!

The one without people is the best IMO. Since this type of image is all about symmetry, I think you need to get it spot on regarding this. You're close but not quite there. (1) it seems a bit off level and (2) there's a gap between 2 piers on the right that's not there on the left.

Love what you are trying for. I like your last crop better, but think it could still be better (for my eye anyway.) Here are to examples.

This first one is like you last, but I included some beach for grounding:

even with the sharp added it still feels soft for me?

Regarding sharpness. Not knowing what your settings or setup were, I'd suggest focusing at the hyper focal distance while using a sharp aperture (f/8-f/11) and using a tripod.