Rate the Photo Above you

[cc143]

I took this one of my brother and grandfather just yesterday, I think it might be my favorite picture I've taken to date. 

[AkiraDaarkst]

3 minutes ago, cc143 said:

I took this one of my brother and grandfather just yesterday, I think it might be my favorite picture I've taken to date. 

I find the focus to be too soft on the brother's face.  Also I'd have used some sort of reflector or bounced a flash of something on the right'ish side.  Having shadows add depth to a portrait but against the harsh sunlight in this composition a bit of light bouncing to reduce the shadows would help.

[cc143]

1 minute ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

I find the focus to be too soft on the brother's face.  Also I'd have used some sort of reflector or bounced a flash of something on the right'ish side.  Having shadows add depth to a portrait but against the harsh sunlight in this composition a bit of light bouncing to reduce the shadows would help.

I was using trying to go for a shallow DOF and underestimated that a bit. Focus is soft

 

I had no reflectors or anything with me, just my camera, also hadn't had time to setup before the shot was taken, it was more of a spur of the moment thing. 

[AkiraDaarkst]

11 minutes ago, cc143 said:

I was using trying to go for a shallow DOF and underestimated that a bit. Focus is soft

 

I had no reflectors or anything with me, just my camera, also hadn't had time to setup before the shot was taken, it was more of a spur of the moment thing. 

You don't need reflectors.  If you have a speedlight, twist the flash head around to let the light bounce.  Or get a large piece of white cardboard or bedsheet, let the sunlight bounce off that and add some light.  Alternatively if you shot in RAW, you can adjust the "Shadows" slider in LR.

 

@cc143

If you like taking portraits, read this book.  It's worth it.

https://www.amazon.com/Sketching-Light-Illustrated-Possibilities-Voices-ebook/dp/B004QQ3MK4/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=

 

Or this one

https://www.amazon.com/Hot-Shoe-Diaries-Flashes-Voices-ebook/dp/B001FA0MBQ/ref=pd_sim_351_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B001FA0MBQ&pd_rd_r=PKWD3S2XQMZFZ4BZXYJD&pd_rd_w=Vr1Mp&pd_rd_wg=bvOrT&psc=1&refRID=PKWD3S2XQMZFZ4BZXYJD

 

And this one

https://www.amazon.com/One-Flash-Great-Photography-Light-ebook/dp/B011E0ED2K/ref=pd_sim_351_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B011E0ED2K&pd_rd_r=HW1KVED15EC66Y9QYP85&pd_rd_w=REGMW&pd_rd_wg=fjn68&psc=1&refRID=HW1KVED15EC66Y9QYP85

[vanished]

2 hours ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

I find the focus to be too soft on the brother's face.  Also I'd have used some sort of reflector or bounced a flash of something on the right'ish side.  Having shadows add depth to a portrait but against the harsh sunlight in this composition a bit of light bouncing to reduce the shadows would help.

I agree the focus causes a bit of an issue ... rather than looking like a portrait of both of them, it looks like a portrait of the grandfather with some guy photo bombing in beside him  

[Mihle]

I know my picure wasnt that good and the sky was over exposed, but no one rated it/said other things I could learn from

[cc143]

5 hours ago, Mihle said:

I know my picure wasnt that good and the sky was over exposed, but no one rated it/said other things I could learn from

Sorry I guess it was my turn and I skipped it. I don't love the composition, I think there's too much of the yellow foliage in the frame and the house takes up too much space, like there's too much going on in one frame. For the overexposure, if you have no grad filters try raking 3 different shots and combining them into an HDR shot in LR. it's a very easy process and really allows for better exposure of the sky. 

 

As far as the focus goes, I like the effect on the image, because of the difference in expression of my clown of a brother who can't keep a smirk off his face and my grandfather who always was measured and more serious. It wasn't by design obviously, but I like how it ended up. Also, it was processed, it was even more overexposed before, I tried adding a grad on LR, but haven;t completely figured out yet how to increase the effect. 

[ionbasa]

On 1/4/2017 at 4:07 PM, cc143 said:

I took this one of my brother and grandfather just yesterday, I think it might be my favorite picture I've taken to date. 

6/10

Lighting is off in my opinion. I may have had them face the natural light source and adjusted the white balance and exposure. Just a thought for next time. I know other have commented, but I feel like reflectors just add too much complexity to the shot, especially if you're like me and prefer to work "on the spot" or in the moment. Depth of Field is good in my opinion, but the lighting situation just ruins the shot.

 

On 1/4/2017 at 10:00 AM, Mihle said:

Great! but one thing, those shadows from humans, personally, I dont think they are quite "enough" to be like a nice part of the picture, but to much to not be like thing in the picture, for me it feels like a distraction in a way. (my opinion others might be different) If I where to give you a score, I would probably say 8,5/10.

I know the sky in this picture is overexposed, but I am posting it anyway:
The Red House by Mihle Photography, on Flickr

(If it doesnt show up use the link or ask me to fix it, I am testing)
https://www.flickr.com/gp/145257438@N02/qJ4472

EDIT: btw, I am a noob photographer, and I know it.

7/10 

Again. Overexposed. Maybe try playing around with some polarization filters. See:

 

They're fairly cheap. Otherwise, nice photo, I really like the landscape.

 

---

Since the above two posts weren't properly rated, I rated both of them and now we can continue normally.

 

So, my turn.

For those of you who don't know, it's the Grand Canyon!

 

[Bsmith]

9 hours ago, ionbasa said:

-snip-

So, my turn.

For those of you who don't know, it's the Grand Canyon!

-snip-

nice way solving that problem.

Your shot looks good, but the only problem I have is that there is no subject in it, everything is in focus, foreground, background, sky, clouds, horizon, but nothing to draw particular attention, so I would say 6/10, since I don't know what to look at.

 

Did my first proper panorama recently, no editing, just a black and white conversion.(click it for the full view on flickr)
 

absence of life by thommy saltzherr, on Flickr

[vanished]

10 hours ago, ionbasa said:

Again. Overexposed. Maybe try playing around with some polarization filters. See:

 

They're fairly cheap. Otherwise, nice photo, I really like the landscape.

And if that's not your fancy, you can almost always get an almost identical effect in post with just a few tweaks anyway.  Drop the luminance on the blues, and maybe boost saturation a bit, warm the colour temperature a bit and that should pretty much do it.  Of course if you see some other differences you can take those into account too.  I suggest this because although these filters are cheap, they don't come with 0 downsides: they can significantly reduce the amount of light coming into your camera, and in shots with a lot of sky, they can often create an odd dark spot.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bsmith said:

nice way solving that problem.

Your shot looks good, but the only problem I have is that there is no subject in it, everything is in focus, foreground, background, sky, clouds, horizon, but nothing to draw particular attention, so I would say 6/10, since I don't know what to look at.

 

Did my first proper panorama recently, no editing, just a black and white conversion.(click it for the full view on flickr)
 

-snip-
absence of life by thommy saltzherr, on Flickr

It feels dark and sad at the same time. A bit scary too. When you stare in the center you don't know what's gonna awaits you at the far end of the forest. 7/10

 

 

Here is a picture I took in Vancouver. 

[mcmxcii]

7/10

The sun is too centre for my taste.

 

http://www.dowdenphotos.com/landscapes/jix96m9djinv4im8aosnctu51vqtqo

 

[cc143]

22 hours ago, mcmxcii said:

7/10

The sun is too centre for my taste.

 

http://www.dowdenphotos.com/landscapes/jix96m9djinv4im8aosnctu51vqtqo

 

8/10, It's a great picture, don't get me wrong, and the proportions are bang on, it just seems a bit empty if it were, maybe if the wooden plank took up a bit more of the frame?

 

 

One of those times I wish I had my tripod...

[vanished]

1 hour ago, cc143 said:

One of those times I wish I had my tripod...

As long as nothing in the shot is moving, you could in theory just take the same shot lots of times at high enough shutter speed and ISO to avoid blur, and then layer them later to reduce noise.  Assuming you more or less stay in one place, that is.

[cc143]

10 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

As long as nothing in the shot is moving, you could in theory just take the same shot lots of times at high enough shutter speed and ISO to avoid blur, and then layer them later to reduce noise.  Assuming you more or less stay in one place, that is.

I wouldn't say nothing is moving, the boats are in water after all. 

I have seen this in a YT video at some point, I just never bothered with it tbh. 

 

[xQubeZx]

6.5/10 @cc143

 

I kinda like the composition but imo I think its to warm of a tone and the reflection in the water is a bit disturbing. May have been possible to avoid with a CPL but that would have dropped the exposure more too. 

 

Here is a shot from my recent trip to NY. 

 

 

[vanished]

9 hours ago, cc143 said:

I wouldn't say nothing is moving, the boats are in water after all. 

I have seen this in a YT video at some point, I just never bothered with it tbh. 

 

Yeah it is likely those were moving, but if they weren't  

[cc143]

10 hours ago, xQubeZx said:

6.5/10 @cc143

 

I kinda like the composition but imo I think its to warm of a tone and the reflection in the water is a bit disturbing. May have been possible to avoid with a CPL but that would have dropped the exposure more too. 

 

Here is a shot from my recent trip to NY. 

 

 

7/10, I'm not sure about the buildings in the Background and the empty space to their left, it distracts my attention. 

 

I tried to get the temperature to a more natural level in LR, but it really messed up the image. 

 

Same night as the previous one. I would like a deeper DOF, but I didn't want to decrease SS or increase ISO any more. 

[vanished]

1 hour ago, cc143 said:

Same night as the previous one. I would like a deeper DOF, but I didn't want to decrease SS or increase ISO any more. 

In hindsight, I think in your situation I would have taken two - one like you did, and one with a smaller aperture, increasing ISO as necessary.  Sometimes you have to sacrifice technical perfection to achieve what you were looking for artistically (though I'll be the first to admit I'm very reluctant to do that myself at times )

[cc143]

46 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

In hindsight, I think in your situation I would have taken two - one like you did, and one with a smaller aperture, increasing ISO as necessary.  Sometimes you have to sacrifice technical perfection to achieve what you were looking for artistically (though I'll be the first to admit I'm very reluctant to do that myself at times )

Well to be fair, I couldn't physically shoot at over 1/20 of a second anyway...cold night

[xQubeZx]

3 hours ago, cc143 said:

 

I tried to get the temperature to a more natural level in LR, but it really messed up the image. 

That is because you shot it too warm. Even though RAW's are great I have found that it is way easier to turn a raw file warmer than trying to make it cooler in the color tone. So when shooting at night you should set your color temperature quite low (like 2000-3000k imo) to get rid of the very warm tone or at least give you the option to have both. 

[.spider.]

9 hours ago, cc143 said:

 

 

I tried to get the temperature to a more natural level in LR, but it really messed up the image. 

 

 

5/10 I don't know what to look at it is just a pier without something interesting. 

These lamps in the foreground are probably sodium lamps.  They emit yellow/orange light only

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natriumdampflampe#/media/File:SOX.png

 

CCD

[.spider.]

5 hours ago, xQubeZx said:

That is because you shot it too warm. Even though RAW's are great I have found that it is way easier to turn a raw file warmer than trying to make it cooler in the color tone. So when shooting at night you should set your color temperature quite low (like 2000-3000k imo) to get rid of the very warm tone or at least give you the option to have both. 

The internal WB has no effect on the RAW.

[xQubeZx]

14 minutes ago, .spider. said:

The internal WB has no effect on the RAW.

Go out and shoot an image with a white balance that is waaay to warm for the setting and one identical but with the right WB or one that is quite close. Then try to get the totally wrong one to look the same as the proper one. 

 

Sure it maybe shouldn't be so but in my experience you may sometimes encouter files that are very hard to fix the light in unless you had it relativly right from the start. 

[AkiraDaarkst]

On 1/6/2017 at 9:43 AM, ionbasa said:

 

 

Check the horizon, it seems to be a bit tilted.