A scene from Venice, Italy.

[marcelo_valente]

I took this shot while in Venice or Venezia in Italy traveling with my wife on our second honeymoon. It was taken near the Rialto bridge. I think I did a great job while composing the shot. Please let me know what do you think and if I could have improved. Sometimes looking at it I think maybe it is too crowded, a lot going on. Did you notice the lamp as frame?



Taken on October 1, 2007 at 5.12pm BRT
Camera Canon PowerShot SD1000 (didn't have a dsrl yet)
Exposure 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture f/4.9
Focal Length 17.4 mm
ISO Speed 80
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Auto, Did not fire

Love some feedback.

Thanks,

[jdloniak]

LOVE IT!!! The colors are awesome.

[wanderella]

i like this shot....and i don't like this shot......and for the same reasons....the lamp.....i think i would have to have two copies of this shot....with and without the lamp.....funny how that is sometime.....great shot......

[Ennor]

there is a lot going, but that is Venice for you. Not too sure about the lamp though, bit like Wanderella in the previous post.
have you tried a selective blurring of background to try and add greater empasis on the gondala ?

[Aleix]

Nice picture, but the lamp distracted me when I first looked at it. I think I'd prefer a version without the lamp... I didn't see it as a frame basically for two reasons:

1. Its size in the picture, compared to that of the gondola and the people
2. Its position, namely almost at the upper-left intersection of the rule of thirds. Perhaps a bit of crop could give it a "frame" appearance...



Also throwing the background a bit out of focus could improve the whole image, but I understand it could not be done with the camera you had in a nice way as a DSLR would.

Greetings

[marcelo_valente]

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback.

I can see that the lamp is really a distraction now. Aleix, your crop does make it look more interesting as it left the lamp there but diminished it's distraction to the whole scene.
Thank you very much for the tips.
I love Venice. It is really crowded with people and things, I will try to blur out the background in photoshop, but I have no idea how to do it. I'm new to this stuff, specially PP. Yesterday I was tryint to figure out how the whole layers thing work in photoshop to try to edit another image but came to almost no conclusion. I think I'm at the part of the learning curve of how to setup the camera and improve my composition. Later I'll go into post-production.
I have just bought my Canon XS a couple of months ago, so...long way to go still.

Thanks again for the advice. If you guys have any tips on how to blur the background or links to how to's please let me know.

[Aleix]

Originally Posted by marcelo_valente

Thanks again for the advice. If you guys have any tips on how to blur the background or links to how to's please let me know.

While blurring the background can be done in PP, it is very strongly recommended you blur it directly when shooting by using the necessary adjustments and setup, because it will require less PP and look - in most cases - much natural and better. The lens itself can also be decisive regarding the appearance of the blur, so different lenses may produce different sorts of blur under the same conditions (read further: Bokeh).

Bokeh example:


Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paseodelsur/51805888/

A great way is to use a long lens (in my case a Pentax SMC DA* Series 50-135mm f/2.8 ED IF SDM), shoot with wide aperture and following the equation below:

* The wider the aperture, more blurred background
* The closer the camera to the focused object and the more distant the subject from the background, more blurred background

Finally, from Wikipedia:

Although difficult to quantify, some lenses enhance overall image quality by producing more subjectively pleasing out-of-focus areas. Good bokeh is especially important for large-aperture lenses, macro lenses, and long telephoto lenses because they are typically used with a shallow depth of field. Bokeh is also important for medium telephoto "portrait lenses" (typically 85–150 mm on 35 mm format) because in portraiture photography, the photographer typically seeks to obtain a shallow depth of field to achieve an out-of-focus background and make the subject stand out.

[jpel3500]

I'm just a newbie........ but..... my thoughts:

Love the colors..... they are outstanding. But like you thought, I think the background is too busy.....Also, I think the lampost is fantastic.......with a different background. Just my opinion! LOL.

JDPelfrey

[marcelo_valente]

Originally Posted by Aleix

While blurring the background can be done in PP, it is very strongly recommended you blur it directly when shooting by using the necessary adjustments and setup, because it will require less PP and look - in most cases - much natural and better. The lens itself can also be decisive regarding the appearance of the blur, so different lenses may produce different sorts of blur under the same conditions (read further: Bokeh).
[/I]

Hello Aleix,
I guess everything was in sharp focus because of the point&shoot camera I was using. A Canon 1000SD. I've just recently decided to apply myself more to one of the things I really like, and always loved, which is taking pictures. So I just recently bought a Canon XS to learn more about photography and am reading and sharing pictures here to get feedback and improve. So, the DSRL almost instantly gives you blurred background and nice bokeh, as I've been using the technics.
I tend to keep my family picture private on flickr but here is one example of what I've been getting as a result. This is my son. But sometimes I do get too much of it, or too shallow a depth of field that things get out of focus where I didn't intend them to be. But this is part of the learning process I guess.


Camera Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS
Exposure 0.02 sec (1/50)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 220 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
Canon Exposure Mode Aperture-priority AE
Lens Type Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS

Thanks for the advice. I would like to try blurring the background of the Venice picture to see what I might have gotten, but I don't really know how to use Photoshop yet, so if you have any tips on that I would really appreciate.

Thank you very much!

[marcelo_valente]

This one has more of the bukeh effect on the background.