Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: theanalyst on February 04, 2008, 06:30:42 am

Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: theanalyst on February 04, 2008, 06:30:42 am
This is from a series of about 15 pics all taken on the same night and is the only one that adequately shows the colours and "whateveritis" that I want to show. Having said that, there is something that I can't identify that I'm not comfortable with.

Processing was adjusting exposure and white balance, brightness and contrast and then tweaking the colour curves.

The picture was taken in Canon raw, transformed in 8 bit GIMP and then saved as an uncompressed TIF. To post I converted the format to JPEG using fairly high compression.

I would appreciate any criticism.

Regards,

Ivan.
Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: bill t. on February 04, 2008, 08:13:40 pm
Well, it's a cargo ship.  There are isolated pretty elements here, but somehow the cargo ship just sucks the life out of this shot.  Sorry.

Maybe if I were a sailor or if I were into ships I'd think differently.  I have seen pictures of such ships that I like, but these pictures did not try to make the ship pretty but rather huge, imposing, majestic.  For a sunset colors type of shot try a wider view, maybe turn this into a picture of a bay or something that will fire off more favorable neurons in people heads.

Also work on technique.  You need to be a lot sharper and keep the noise way down.  Try a tripod and mirror lock-up for the telephoto stuff.
Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: theanalyst on February 05, 2008, 12:45:26 am
Thanks for your comment Bill. No need to say "sorry" as I am sure your comment was meant to help rather than hurt.

"Pretty"? Maybe, "beautiful"? Yes, that is what I wanted to convey. Also "majestic" (in which task I obviously failed!). I suspect that I should have de-saturated the colours a little bit but then I was going to lose the sky.

Any ideas on reducing the noise would be appreciated - obviously you are seeing some introduced noise from the jpeg conversion but, yes, the original suffers from a similar problem. Also sharpness, I did use a tripod and mirror lockup and cable shutter release but still the sharpness isn't there. There was a wind that night but I had thought the weight of the lens (approx. 2kg) would have prevented that having an effect.

In case it helps, the shot details are: EOS 400D body, ISO 100, 30s exposure, F22, 266mm focal length (using the Sigma 50-500mm zoom). I went F22 to try to ensure sharpness even if the focus in some parts was slightly off (I firgured this was going to be a long exposure no matter what!)

Thanks again.

Ivan.
Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: kaelaria on February 05, 2008, 01:00:58 am
F22 isn't your sharpest aperture, nor was it needed for that shot.  Try 8-11 next time.  Crank the ISO up to 400 or 800 and get your shutter speed to a more reasonable range.  You will much less noise and a sharper image.
Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: TMcCulley on February 05, 2008, 01:16:25 am
Quote
ISO 100, 30s exposure, F22, 266mm focal length

Ivan.
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Ivan,
Did you forget that the sea is in constant motion and even when flat and calm there is some movement.  I think 30 seconds was way to long.  Where you on a boat also?  I bet if you could have used ISO 800 and F8 which would have given you about 6 more stops of speed the picture would have been sharper.  Of course a round of Noise Ninja (or NR or your choice) and PhotoKit Sharpener and you would have been in good shape

Tom
Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: theanalyst on February 05, 2008, 02:20:46 am
Oh dear! Yes, the movement of the sea which, obviously, affects even the bulk of a ship this size was not something that occurred to me!

I will certainly try for a similar shot in the near future using these suggestions - with F8 and ISO 800 I will certainly have time to experiment.

Having considered these comments I think I will start shooting slightly earlier as well also trying to get the shutter speed up a bit.

Meantime, there's a storm brewing up very nicely so I will go and see what I can see!

Thanks for the comments - I appreciate the time taken!

Ivan.
Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: blansky on February 05, 2008, 11:34:33 am
As others have said, you need to get straight in your mind what you are trying to accomplish and then use the various elements of the camera to achieve that.

Perhaps study ISO in relationship with shutter speed and noise. As well as what depth of fields are useful and necessary on far away objects.

In this picture you sacrificed sharpness and probably noise to keep a 100 ISO setting when you should have experimented with high ISO and sharpness. 30 second exposure noise is probably worse than 800 ISO or 1600 ISO noise.

Next time you're shooting a scene like this, think of these things and experiment with different setting and see which ones work better and your work will imporve.


Michael
Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: Provokot on February 05, 2008, 01:39:36 pm
Apart from the noise/sharpness aspects, I think you need to consider the composition. Yout horizon cuts clean through the middle which is in this particular case a no-no. Its killed your pic. I think that the colour of the sky is gorgeous; with two thirds sky the composition would improve and the picture would offer a greater sense of scale.

I also think that having the ship exactly side-on makes the image too 'show and tell' Imagine the ship three quarters on and demarcating the left/right hand third of the image - and that lovely sky...

I hope I have been helpful and good luck with your next attempt! (BTW I love ships!)
Title: Ship at anchor
Post by: hs0zfe on June 15, 2008, 12:14:30 pm
The whole photo seems very unreal or sureal to me.

The lack of sharpness is one aspect, the artificial sky with that light to the left... Putting the ship in the center makes it less interesting.