Lost along the River bed

[Equinoxe]

I am very new with Digital photography. +-2 weeks. I was given a sigma 10-20mm as a gift and now i am trying to take some landscape picture but it doesn't seem to give me the wow factor.
How to use this lens properly and how can i minimize the distorsion on this picture...

[Doctor Atomo]

Nice subject!
I think you might want to play with the colors a little. The overcast day and realistic color just doesn't pop! You could try white balance to warm things up, or a differently lit time or day.
For distortion, I try not to use my wide angle cranked all the way wide. Just a few degrees narrower makes a big difference, although there is software that can help repair distortion.
Keep trying!

[doctorjames]

landscape photography with a 10-20mm (assuming and APS-C size sensor) is a bit of a non-starter for me.

Anything from 10 to 17mm is likely to look distorted, and even when corrected for, tends to give an 'unreal' perspective on things..

I often use primes (fixed focal length) rather than zooms, so im not stereotypical for this forum. There are many reasons for this, all of which centreing around flexibility. When it comes to framing your shot, primes are very inflexible, and you will have to do more walking to get the right vantage point (and sometimes you cant at all). In almost ever other aspect they are more flexible than a zoom. They are faster, pound for pound (or buck for buck) have better optics, and with it less 'distortion'.

The other huge plus point as I see it with a prime is that you get to know the lense, what it can and cant do, and how much you can ask of it. It's much quicker to learn a prime lense as you dont have to learn how to adapt for the variety of focal lengths it can provide.

If you are sure you want to stick with zooms, then I would suggest the kit lense that likely came with your camera as a better bet to start out with, especially as you as so new to the DSLR. For landscapes you will often be using the sub 35mm range, but use caution when going below 20mm.

In terms of critiquing your shot.... if it was me taking it with the same camera and lense (I dont know what body you use) I would have done the following things different.

1) Chosen whether to include the horizon, and if including (as you have done) I would have made sure this was horizontal. I may not have included it at all.

2) Decide what you want in focus. The rock clearly in the foreground is... but then the focus goes slightly soft by the horizon, neither really in or out of focus, just a little blurred.

3) Find a point of interest and really make it stand out by altering your stance or position. Your subject doesnt really stand out or distinguish itself.

I cant tell you how to use the 10-20mm lense better, as I dont own one, and when I have used similar I have always been unhappy with the results. In my opinion they are best suited to estate agents (real estate for the US) who need to make things appear bigger and more spacious than they really are!

[Equinoxe]

Thanks Doctorjames,
i will try to shoot with the 18-55mm until i can master the camera. I was quite scared to post my pictures but it was worth it. I will try to put your comments into practice next time. I am shooting with a Canon450D.

[Equinoxe]

Thanks guys for your comments. Photography is not a cheap hobby at all but it is great fun... I am trying to lean all the different controls of my camera to find out all about colours, white balance, etc... but will keep on trying for sure. Will keep he sigma in the bag until i master everything!