More Photo's for Navcom

[Christi9409]

I hope it's alright that I keep picking on you. I took these 2 photo's this morning and wanted to show them to you. I did the auto contrast on the senond one in picasa. I had the white balance set to shady on both pics. I swear I will never get this figured out. Well anyway the
first one is 1/320s, f/13.0 iso 200 focal length 140.0
second one is 1/320s f/13.0 iso 200 focal length 135.0

Well I guess my question is is there ever going to be a shot that doesn't have to be " fixed " or do most of them need a little tweeking now and then. Everybody can chime in here. You won't hurt my feelings Thanks Christi

From 2010-03-13

<

[navcom]

Hi again! No problem! I've been picked on worse than this!

To answer your question about whether there is ever an image that doesn't require some fixing. The answer is "sometimes". Between you and me, it's rare that I don't do something to a photo before I think it's complete. Sometimes that's just a quick sharpening, which most photos require to some degree. Other times it's a bit of play with the contrast (like you are going through) or the saturation. And if I had a real bad day where nothing seemed to work out, I'm really working hard in PS to make them work so I don't feel the whole shoot was a waste.

When you are new, you will do more post processing...and that's not all bad. It's important to learn proper exposure and technique so you get them as close to perfect as you can right out of the camera, but that doesn't happen every day. There's no reason to waste the work you've done. I learn more from my mistakes than I do from my successes. And since I make a lot of mistakes, that's a good thing!

Take the images that I've attached. The first one (good.jpg) is a print I've sold several copies of. In and of itself, I don't think it's all that wonderful...it just has a mood that some like. But I also know the history of the shot. The second image is the actual shot as it was taken from my camera (bad.jpg). This shot was not planned. I just happened to be pulling in my driveway after a storm and grabbed my camera. I took about a dozen shots but was not planning on them being anything worthwhile. More just to document the moment as I wasn't prepared to begin with.

Well, after playing around in Photoshop (about a year later!) I came up with the better version. So in this case, there was a ton of changes I needed to make and it worked out. And as for an actual, say, sunrise shoot, I will probably take 150 shots with maybe 10 or 12 that stand out...and then maybe only one or two that I really like.

I have noticed over the years that the more I partake of this madness we call photography, the less I have to post-process. But it will never go away. The same was true with the dark room. Photoshop is just the digital version of the darkroom.

For the images you attached, mostly you need to work on contrast issues. It's really just a matter of playing around and not being afraid to experiment until you get something that works. I did notice that you are still using a pretty big zoom lens (focal length of around 140mm). This will drastically affect your contrast, especially when there is any haze or pollution in the air...which is most of the time. When you zoom in, you actually isolate a far away area that is already obscured slightly by the haze...which means it will have much less contrast than things that are closer. Notice what you see with your eyes; things that are close are crisp and clear while distant mountains and valleys are a little less crisp and are a bit devoid of color and contrast. If you zoom in on that area, you will by default have less contrast in the whole image. When you use a wider angle lens, say 20-50mm, and you can see both the close crisp objects and the distant vague objects, and that creates depth in your image. It ends up being an advantage versus a disadvantage.

The answer is to use a wider angle lens and get closer to your subject (or change your composition). This is why most refer to wide angle lenses as "landscape" lenses. That doesn't mean there is no place for longer focal lengths in landscape photography...they are just not used quite as much for this type of shot.

Hope that helps!

[Christi9409]

So I need to invest in a wide angle lens. That was on my list but I really waanted to get a macro lens first, but maybe I can get one now and one later. I will keep looking for one. Thanks for all your help and I will quit picking on you for now. thanks Christi

[navcom]

No problem! It's not a bother at all. That's what the forum is for. Don't remember off the top of my head which camera you have but if it accepts older lenses, you can certainly consider buying a older used wide angle lens...even an old manual focus, manual aperture lens (again...if your camera will allow it).

For landscape photography, you really don't need auto focus. I actually turn it off most of the time as I get much better results using hyperfocal distance focusing (or just manually focusing it by eye in some cases). Auto focus can sometimes screw up the focus on a landscape shot.

I use many old manual lenses for my Pentax bodies. I have a couple that I treasure that I spent less than $50 on...and they take absolutely stunning pictures. Pentax actually made some of the best lenses out there. So even 30 or 40 year-old lenses do a fantastic job.