First attempt with a DSLR

[dbp]

Hi everyone, this is my first post on this forum.

I took this photo of a marina in Eastbourne, UK in the afternoon with the sun low in the sky. This is the first time I had taken my new DSLR out of the house so still getting to grips with it. I'd love to hear what you guys think I could have done better.



EXIF
Camera: Nikon D5000
Lens: 18-55mm VR
F-stop: f/9
Exposure time: 1/320 sec
ISO: ISO-200
Exposure bias: +1 step
Focal Length: 40mm
No Flash

[BuddhaPi]

Greets and welcome,
thbe very this thing i see in this image is the railng and the angle of it, a crop would help a bit IMHO

[Krusty79]

That's a very good shot for a beginner! It's well exposed and the horizon is level. I don't know if you included that rail for foreground interest, but I think it's more distracting because it doesn't lead your eye into the scene. Overall, it's a very nice scene - my only complaint is that there is no main subject that draws your eye. That's why I started this thread:

Is a compelling subject required?

You're off to a good start, though.

[eugenen]

I also think the railing is a bit distracting but overall a very nice photograph.

I have a question because of something I noticed her and in my own pictures, the mast of the one yacht is cut off at the top. Is this seen as bad composition or does it actually make the photograph more interesting, as I always battle to frame everything especially in a busy scene as above.

[dbp]

Thanks for your comments, I have tried cropping the image so that the rail is no longer visible at the bottom but it looks weird because the reflection of the building is cut off too. I guess there's only so much you can do without getting a better photo to begin with.

I also noticed the mast being cut off the top and didn't know if this was bad composition?

[DelCan]

I think if you crop the rail out of the pic you'll have a very good photo. You'll notice things like from now on. Good job!

[EOBeav]

You picked a great time to shoot this. The lighting here is exceptional. Compositionally, I'd like to see a closer zoom on the boats, possibly even lining two or three of them in a row to create a pattern.

[Krusty79]

I didn't even really notice the mast being cut off, so it doesn't bother me. I think that is because there are a lot of them. If there was just that one in the shot and it was cut off, it would be a lot more noticeable.

[Michael_2010]

The railing does kind of stand out for all the wrong reasons. Need more of it, or none of it. Nice shot though and it would be worth the effort to clone that out of the frame.

Why did you increase the Ev? I probably would have backed off on it instead to increase saturation and contrast between the water, the building and the sky.

[dbp]

Hi thanks again for the comments... I tried several Ev settings, when I reduced it, it made the picture way too dark. This was the pick of the bunch for me.

But as said, I'm totally new to DSLR's so have loads to learn yet. Just need time to practice!