Mephistophel's thread

[Mephistophelous]

Hi, it's my first post here, so I'll welcome any advice about photography.

[Grumbledook]

hi welcome to the forum!

some initial observations:

the first one, its hard to make out whats going on, there seems to be a lack of depth, can't work out if its on a wall, or on a flat surface

the second one and the coin shot, you have blown out the highlights on them (over exposed), be careful with this, usually better to underexpose and increase brightness

blow the highlights out and you can't get back that lost detail

the clouds one seems to lack any proper composition and is a bit bland, there is nothing leading the eye around the photo, or an obvious focal point either

watch out for the odd angles, the kinda orange sky one, what I think is a sclupture and the last one, they are all leaning without any real reason as to why they were shot like that

the last one imho would have been more interesting from a few metres behind the subject, keeping him in the foreground and having what he is looking at in the background, but keeping the horizon level

the stream picture however I think is quite nice
you could try using a longer shutter speed with the flowing water to get a greater sense of movement
also watch out with the highlights on the right hand side, its getting close to being overexposed, you could try bracketing exposures and combining in post production (though this is more useful in larger scene changes, usually with sky and land in)

I took some shots when I was in costa rica I need to do this with, I could knock out a tutorial for the mentor section if it would be helpful.

Hope that helps and gives you some ideas for things to work on, keep shooting!

[Mephistophelous]

Thanks.
Some of the thoughts you shared have come across my mind before too ans some are new to me. About the exposure - how do you keep best the ballance between having much noise and big exposure?

Here are some others :

[Grumbledook]

not sure what you mean by "big" exposure

noise is usually down to the ISO level you are using, the higher the ISO the more noise/grain there will be, but the more sensitive to light the ccd/film is

so higher ISO is used when you need to capture more light for a good exposure than is possible through aperture or shutter speed adjustment

either cause the aperture on your lens won't go large enough, or you need to control the depth of field

or you can't go to a slower shutter speed cause it will blur the image due to movement, either your own or the subject (or both)

getting a correct exposure is a juggle between trying to control all those factors

If you have a more specific question then just shout ;]

as for those pics, the first one again is a bit too overexposed for my liking, a faster shutter speed or smaller aperture would darken things up a touch

The second one I would crop around the subject more, there is a lot of background in relation to the figureine. Also watch out where your light is coming from, his face (usually the focal point on a person) is in the shadow.

[Ment]

First of all, it makes it a lot easier to comment on when you give your photo's a number.

I'm not a big fan of the editing in photo 3 and 5, you lose to much detail in the highlights, like Grumbledook said.
Generally is less noice better and I don't really see the addition of the noice in these photo's.

I like the first one of your second batch most, it's a nice compostion. Just those highlights are blown out again and the photo could use a little more contrast.

[Mephistophelous]

Thanks for the comments.
And yes, Grumbledook, you understood what I wanted to ask - how to ballance between those factors. My opinion till now is that the main factor is the light - it's power and the angle from where it comes. Man has to adjust to these two first.
About the second group with pictures - the first one is the only one made with analog camera.
And yes, I'll try to number the next photographs I show here.

[Grumbledook]

I guess the balance comes from trying to get a good exposure, whilst maintaining a good shot. For example boosting the ISO to eliminate blurring to gain a faster shutter speed.

[Mephistophelous]

More photograps :

[purplerose]

the cat one is a bit noisy, but it's pretty nice. Keep shooting.