Critiques desired

[eclectix]

Hello.  This will be my first post on this forum.  There is some amazing skill and talent on this board, and I've already learned a lot just by lurking over the past week. 

I am seeking hard critiques of my work.  I know that I have a lot of technical knowledge to develop yet and I hope to learn before I invest in more expensive equipment.  Right now I'm making do with an early model Canon Digital Rebel, which is frustrating sometimes because of the low megapixel count.  I dabbled in photography as a youth, but I sort of put it on the side when I had a family.  Now as the kids are getting older I'm finding more time for myself (and hopefully a wee bit more free funds) and hope to pick it back back up again; however, the technology has changed quite a bit over the years and I'm finding myself essentially learning from scratch all over again.   It's hard to get better though when people I know only tell me how much they like my pictures; they don't give me the critiques I need to make them better, and I know that they could be better.  So please, let me know what I'm doing right and what I am doing wrong.

[RSL]

Tix,

Welcome aboard.

I know there'll be a lot of disagreement on this one, but my first hard critique is that unless you're in the business of making photographs for seed catalogs, pictures of flowers pretty much are a waste of time. With flowers you're up against some serious specialists.

My next hard critique is that unless you're trying to upstage Ansel Adams or make wall-sized prints, a 6 megapixel Rebel can do just about anything that needs doing, so don't think that more expensive equipment is going to improve your photography. What improves photography for someone who starts out with the necessary God-given eye, is experience and knowledge -- especially knowledge of the work of the masters in the genre you've chosen. In landscape that'd be Ansel, Weston, and a host of others. In street that'd be Cartier-Bresson, Frank, and a host of others. Looks to me as if God's given you a good eye, so, get some books and study your field of interest, and get out there and shoot.

#3 is the best of the four shots -- partly because there's enough depth of field to do the job. The tone mapping is good and it's a fine catch. My only beef is that on my (thoroughly calibrated) screen I see what might be some posterization in the hills. But on any monitor, calibrated or not, it's hard to tell when the shadings are this subtle. I'm probably wrong. I like the picture in any case.

For the flower shots you needed f/22, a tripod, and a cable release. In #2 I can't be sure anything is in focus. In #4 the middle ground is in focus and the foreground is out. Sometimes that works, but not with this particular shot.

#1, of the boats and the great blue isn't bad, but there's no real focus point in the picture, or to put it another way, there are too many focus points in the picture. My eye drifts all over the place, from the boats, to the bird, to the sunlight clouds. I think the problem is the bird. He's cute but he's extraneous.

So there, you asked for hard critiques. These are mine. I'm sure there'll be others, many of which will disagree with mine. Again, welcome aboard, and keep shooting.

[degrub]

#1 - i agree with RSL - too many focus points. Personally, i could do without the boats and the sky.  i like the bird better if it has a square framing and just includes the immediate background. Almost painterly in effect.
#2 - framing and focus
#3 - the tree and the deer seem distracting in what could be a great study on tones on the sand dunes against the bright blue sky.
#4 - i would like it more if the front flower was the focal point with the rear one diffused out.

i am always fighting my self to include too much in an image as i start to compose.

[JohnKoerner]

Hello.  This will be my first post on this forum.  There is some amazing skill and talent on this board, and I've already learned a lot just by lurking over the past week.  
I am seeking hard critiques of my work.  I know that I have a lot of technical knowledge to develop yet and I hope to learn before I invest in more expensive equipment.  Right now I'm making do with an early model Canon Digital Rebel, which is frustrating sometimes because of the low megapixel count.  I dabbled in photography as a youth, but I sort of put it on the side when I had a family.  Now as the kids are getting older I'm finding more time for myself (and hopefully a wee bit more free funds) and hope to pick it back back up again; however, the technology has changed quite a bit over the years and I'm finding myself essentially learning from scratch all over again.   It's hard to get better though when people I know only tell me how much they like my pictures; they don't give me the critiques I need to make them better, and I know that they could be better.  So please, let me know what I'm doing right and what I am doing wrong.

Hello and welcome.

I am still learning too, but I feel I have gotten a pretty good handle on macro photography compared to most folks. That said, here would be my hard critiques:


1. Too dark. Your subject (the boat) is partially-hidden by bushes and is in the background. Telephone lines in the photo detract from a "sea/boat" shot in general, and they clash with the rigging of the boat in particular. The greatest amount of space in the photo is taken-up by dull, dark, uninteresting bushes that have nothing to do with your subject and aren't attractive enough to warrant that kind of dominance in the photo.

2. Too dark in some areas + highlights/detail lost in others. Soft focus + you clipped both the top and the bottom of the flower in your composition, and yet did not capture enough detail of the subject to warrant a close-up. Utterly common "snapshot" background with no bokeh.

3. I like #3 a lot but looks a bit bright to me. Would have been a better shot if taken in the morning light (looks to be taken in the mid-afternoon light, which is the harshest light of all). It is still a good composition though, with nice details in the sand dune.

4. Too dark. Yellow cast looks like you again took the shot in mid-day rather than early morning light. Utterly common background with way too many distracting elements. Foreground flower is clipped, mid-range (subject) flower is clipped, with only the background flower captured in whole (and it is both blurred as well as having 2-dozen distracting leaves, stems, etc. sprouting all about it).


I am not much of a landscape photographer, so I can't give you a lot of pointers there, but your macro work needs to have more attention paid to isolating the subject by selectively composing your shots with 1) better backgrounds in mind and 2) taking them at a time of day where the light is most pleasing rather than more harsh. I also strongly disagree with the f/22 suggestion. With a little Rebel you will start seeing diffraction past f/11, not to mention you can kiss any chance of achieving a pleasing bokeh goodbye. I do, however, agree with the tripod and remote statement, using mirror lock-up/live view.

Most importanly, I would get a longer macro lens first, and then keep your f/stop between f/4 and f/9, and you will see a dramatic improvement in your presentations.

Good luck,

Jack


.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Welcome!

#3 is the one that leapt out at me and the first I expanded beyond the thumbnail. I like it but I feel there's too much small stuff (like the stag) which distracts from the image: it's really a landscape shot, not a nature photo. Unlike degrub, I don't mind the tree too much, although I certainly see his point.

Jeremy

[popnfresh]

First of all, please take photographs of anything that interests you. No subject is a waste of time. It's only a waste of time if you're not learning. So by all means snap away to your heart's content.

In my opinion, #1 is your strongest picture. I don't think it's too dark. You've captured a beautiful twilight light so it's appropriate for it to be dark. But you're holding detail in the low values, so it's not too dark. I also like the composition the way it is. The crane is the real subject, and I like how it's hidden from view in its own area while civilization happens next door. If I had to change anything, I'd like the crane to be a tad lighter so it pops out of the background more.

#2 is your weakest shot. The flower is cropped too tightly and that thin framing line has to go. Having the flower petals overlap the line in places is hackneyed and won't impress anyone but the most diehard fans of cheap greeting cards. Trust me on this.

Number 3 does nothing for me, I'm afraid. The light is hard and unappealing and the all-background composition doesn't hold my interest.

Number 4 would have been a nice shot, but again you've cropped too tightly. The flowers need more air on the left and I think it was a mistake to crop off part of the flower at the bottom of the frame.

[eclectix]

Thanks for all of the critiques, I appreciate every one of them.

I don't plan to limit my subject material, because I simply enjoy photographing pretty much everything that strikes me as interesting and I love plants.  I suppose it is sort of cliche.  I guess if I ever want to show in an exhibit I'll just keep my floral prints in my folder.

I enjoyed the lighting on the boat photograph; the atmosphere was stormy and electric as the sun was starting to set, and I really get the feel of that when I look at the picture.  Maybe that's why I like it; because it takes me back there when I see it.  I have several of the same basic composition but without the heron.  I could post some to see what people think, but for some reason I like the heron because it forms a dynamic triangle between the boat, the sunlit clouds, and the bird.

The orchid is one that I've waffled on quite a bit.  I like the way the background came out, and others really seem to like it, but it always struck me as being rather ordinary otherwise.

The sand dunes and deer I took a lot of photographs in the early morning, before the sun had cleared the mountains behind it, but in all the shots the deer kept their backs to me as they were watching the western plains.  I think they may have smelled a coyote or something in that direction.  I had given up getting a good picture of them until we were leaving in the afternoon and I saw that they had moved under the shade of that solitary tree.  It seemed like a good opportunity with the dunes in the background.  I'm not sure about posterization, but there are foot trails all over the dunes which might look like strange artifacts.  I took a great deal of photographs of the dunes that day, but on many of them the sky was blown out.  Like I said, I'm learning all over again.

I have a tripod and use it frequently but I definitely need to get a cable release or remote shutter control.  That will probably have to wait until I get a new camera, though.  I know that some people don't mind the lower megapixels, but my camera doesn't even shoot in RAW format and I don't like the artifacts that frequently end up in my skies.  Skies are one of my favorite subjects so I want to be able to make them look nice.

Yes, studying books is something I am doing whenever I get the chance.

If it's not a problem I'll just post a few more pieces here.  Feel free to add more critiques; I appreciate all the advice I can get.  You can only learn so much from reading books.  I'm not sure whether the long-distance shot works without anything in the foreground, but would love to hear others' opinions on the matter (or anything else for that matter).

[RSL]

Tix, It's not a problem. We all enjoy seeing new stuff. I like all three of these. #3 and #7 look like Great Sand Dunes National Park to me. Is that right?

[eclectix]

Russ- Thanks, and yes, it is!  I have lived in Colorado my entire life and yet somehow never made it to see the dunes until this summer.  I bought a mobile home this summer though, and have been traveling to all those places I've pictures of but never been to, and it's gotten me excited about photography again in a big way!

The tree was photographed at Arches National Park later on the same trip.  I took a handful of photographs there as well, but we didn't have much time there since one of our group had a hand injury which needed medical attention.  As a result, I had to make due with mid day sun.  I got a few pretty pictures, but was left feeling unsatisfied with the experience.  I'll be going back again and spending some real time there to get some proper photographs.  I do sort of like this one, though;

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

#3 is the best of the four shots -- ... The tone mapping is good and it's a fine catch. My only beef is that on my (thoroughly calibrated) screen I see what might be some posterization in the hills.

Hi Eclectix and a very warm welcome.

I still have my rebel (and every other piece of camera kit I have ever bought if I am honest), it's a nice camera, but I would suggest investing in some good EF L lenses before any thoughts of jumping into the pixel race. If you get EF L's they will fit anything in the future and give you excellent service, assuming you stick with Canon of course - good glass beats pixels any day.

Yes I totally agree with Russ, #3 is definitely a fine catch, good composition, nice tones and a thoroughly nice shot - but I also have to agree with Russ, that I too can see quite a bit of posterization in the sky, even on my totally uncalibrated laptop. Try gently going over the sky with the blur tool set to about 30% with nice even horizontal strokes, this should even out any visible lines.

Dave (UK)

[eclectix]

Thanks, Dave, I'll be sure to try that out.