Cliffs of Moher - critique

[delphicwhisky]

Hello,

I took this picture in Ireland a couple of weeks ago when I was on holiday. It was pretty cold and kind of foggy but not that bad. This is a hand held shot I took with my D3000 that I recently bought and this is my first attempt at photography with a DSLR or to be honest, with any camera apart from phone cameras

I'm a newbie and this was taken in aperture priority mode with the following details.

Camera: D3000
F-stop: F/6.3
Shutter speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Focal length: 18mm
Lens: 18-55mm kit lens (VR)

Shot in VIVID mode and sharpened a little.

I would love your input on this and hopefully I could improve in the future

[milosh]

Hello there,

You haven't told us on what aspect of your image you would like us to critique. Is it composition, shooting technique, post-processing, or something else?

Here's my opinion: since you were shooting at 18mm, ISO 200 and 1/200, you could have stopped your lens down to f8 or even f11, which would result in shutter speed of 1/60 or something around that. This would give you a bit more depth of field, while still keeping the shutter speed reasonably high.

Next, regarding composition, I like the fact that the cliffs make a (sort of) diagonal line, leading the eye to the right.
What I don't like is too much of the sky which has almost no detail in it. The sky is not distracting, but it's neither contributing to the image. I think you should have tried to change your position so that your frame includes only a narrow strip of sky above the cliffs, while still including a bit of foreground like it does now. Also, making the cliffs more diagonal would make it more dynamic. It would probably take a bit longer focal length and a different position.

Regarding your shooting option (vivid in jpeg), I think it worked fine for you this time, the colours are nicely saturated but not too saturated.

[LeeR]

There are some very good things happening in this image. For one thing you have a repetition of forms running from bottom left toward top right; near to far. This is a solid compositional device. However, I believe that if you will run this through "levels" and get the whites truly white and then crop off a good deal of that empty sky you will end up with a much better image. A tiny bit more saturation might also be in order but you will have to try that for yourself.

[sk66]

I think a levels adjustment is definitely in order, and perhaps some brightness/contrast.
I don't think f/8 would have helped DOF but it would be closer to the lens "sweet spot" for sharpness/clarity, F11 better yet. Closing down the aperture without increasing ISO would probably result in blurring of the waves some which might be good (might not).

Crop? well I'd get the exposure/contrast set first...I think the sky might have quite a bit of interest then.

[EOBeav]

It's a nice scene. I concur with closing down your aperture (I stick with f/11 or f/16 for places like this). Get a tripod and reduce your ISO to 100 for maximum picture quality. Beyond that, a few things that would help you out compositionally:

• Something in the foreground to add some interest
• A better sky, preferably taken at sunset or sunrise

Hopefully you can get back here to shoot again under better conditions. Good luck, and keep shooting!

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[delphicwhisky]

Thank you for your responses everyone. Just scrolling down on the sky a little dramatically improves the image. Makes you wonder how much importance composition has in photography.

Unfortunately, I was on holiday in Ireland and will not be able to try my luck again but hopefully if luck favours, I shall go again and shoot again. Although this being exactly 1 week after my first real experience with a DSLR, I'd say it's not so bad

About the levels adjustment, how do I do that? And won't that have effects on the rest of the image as well?

Thank you!

[milosh]

Originally Posted by delphicwhisky

About the levels adjustment, how do I do that? And won't that have effects on the rest of the image as well?

Thank you!

Generally yes, but you can restrict it to certain parts of the image if you want to (I assume you have Photoshop). Here's a quick tutorial on Levels, and you can find many others on the web. Rescuing Poorly Exposed Photos with Photoshop Levels