basic photography question ..

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rootaxs

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2000
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Color looks dull. Are you using a digital camera? Looks like what most digicams put out.

Anyway, i can't vouch for the settings but you may want to invest in a polarizing filter. Works wonders with outdoor pictures :)
 
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Lucky

Lifer
Nov 26, 2000
13,126
1
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First one, the exposure is decent. The horizon is obviously off-balance and I think the composition could use some work but as far as exposure its not bad at all. If you want to make it interesting you could use a really slow shutter speed to blur the water, or a polarizer to darken/increase contrast in the sky.

Second one, the exposure is also OK. Again, the horizon is off-balance but I like the attempt to use the foreground and the background. Depending on what you want to emphasize you might want to wait until the building in the background is highlighted by the sun to bring it out a little more. F/11 or F/16 might have been more effective if you wanted near-infinite depth of field in this case. The skyline seems somewhat blurry.

Third one: Depending on the equpment you have and what kind of photo you wanted to make, I would have stepped back, put on a longer lens, and isolated the space ship. The background is somwhat distracting; a longer lens and an aperture of 2.8 or f/4 would do a great deal for the photo (again, dependent on what you are trying to do).

What camera did you use and how where they made digital?
 
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bandXtrb

Banned
May 27, 2001
2,169
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Yes, I forgot to mention I'm using a Canon G1 digital camera and saved as large JPEGs.

So how can I improve the balance? and composition? Which of these would have been helped by a polarizing filter?

Thanks for the feedback.
 
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rootaxs

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2000
2,487
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71
the filter would be most beneficial with outdoor shots like what you just showed us.

i figured it was a digi cam. you have a pretty cool set-up but in my perspective, i think Fuji has a better "eye"... the colors just look a lot richer with it. mess around with your color balance and if you have photoshop play around with the curves, you'll notice a lot of details that the built-in compressor on your cam failed to consider.

i just got some photo's from Asia lately and i can e-mail you some of them to get an idea of what i meant by richer colors. you wouldn't even know it was taken from a digicam :)
 
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tim0thy

Golden Member
Oct 23, 2000
1,936
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lucky is on the ball with this one. regarding his comment on the 3rd one, i totally agree. with a higher aperture setting, you will be able to achieve bokeh, which is sort of like a blurring effect on the background of the photo. i don't have the settings of the G1 in front of me, so i don't know what the maximum aperture settings on your zoom lens are.

also, i believe canon has an aperture priority mode. play around with that for a while. most of the time, i shoot in that mode with my d30 and it's pretty reliable.

as for how you can improve composition, this is something you have to practice. i know digital photography gives the impression that the photos you take are 'free'; but to truly take good photos you have to take a step back and ask yourself what you're trying to capture. else everything you take is more or less like a snapshot.

i also suggest that since it's a sunny day, you might want to invest in a UV filter. UV makes pictures more dull. you can also mess around with the photo in photoshop and take it from there. lastly, invest in a decent tripod... it will be your tool for taking good pictures everytime.
 
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