Nebraska State Capital

[RJaswal]

Here is a picture I took outside the Nebraska State Capital. I ended up having to lay down on the ground and turn my camera side ways to capture the whole image. I tried a couple of different modes to see which picture looked the best, but ended up with the Aperture priority mode to try to keep the whole picture in focus.




Canon EOS REBEL T3i
Shooting Date/Time 11/5/2011 12:41:16 PM
Shooting Mode Program AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/200
Av( Aperture Value ) 9.0
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation 0
ISO Speed 100
Auto ISO Speed OFF
Lens EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II
Focal Length 18.0 mm
Image Size 3456x5184
Aspect ratio 3:2
Image Quality Fine
Flash Off
FE lock OFF
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode One-Shot AF
AF area select mode Manual selection
Picture Style Auto
Sharpness 3
Contrast 0
Saturation 0
Color tone 0
Color Space sRGB
Long exposure noise reduction 0:Off
High ISO speed noise reduction 0:Standard
Highlight tone priority 0isable
Auto Lighting Optimizer Standard
Peripheral illumination correction Enable
Dust Delete Data No
File Size 1377 KB
Drive Mode Continuous shooting
Live View Shooting ON

[IABoomer]

I like what you're trying to do here. I like that you've got some clouds in the sky to add some texture behind the building.

The couple things I notice right off hand are, the horizontal lines look like they tilt a bit. The left seems a bit higher than the right. Perhaps a little rotation in post could straighten that up.

The other thing I notice is the image, while basically centered, is slightly off, so the symmetry between the left and right isn't quite there. There's more features on the left side of the image than there are on the right. Maybe while you're rotating to clean up the horizontals, you could crop just a touch off the left to center the image more.

You could play with lens corrections and try to adjust the perspective so the building doesn't look like it's falling away. Doing this would also involve doing a bit of cropping since the bottom is going to be pinched in and it might make the crop too tight, but it could be interesting to see what happens.

If you get a chance to shoot this later in the evening when the sun is warmer and the shadows are longer, that could add some warmth and dimension. It might also look interesting during a blue hour (before sunrise or shortly after sunset) where the sky would be a deeper darker blue and you'd have the warm orange/yellow tungsten lights lighting the building.

[Krusty79]

I like that you got down low to take the shot instead of just shooting at eye level. However, a straight-on shot of a building is usually not the most dynamic angle to use. When the vertical lines in a shot like this are not vertical, it is very noticeable. When you have a large subject like this, another option is to take multiple images and stitch them together.

[Infinite Monkey]

Not a photo critique but an observation -- that looks like the building over which Superman was able to leap in a single bound in the opening of the Superman TV show. (yeah, I'm dating myself)

[RJaswal]

Thanks for the great replies!!!

I'm still pretty new at taking pictures, so I'm still working on trying to figure out what settings I should use in what situations. I might have to come back to this thread somewhere down the road and try to work with some of the ideas as right now I'm not really sure how to go about making some of the changes.

Part of the reason behind the picture being slightly off center would have to be due to the fact that I was laying on the ground with my feet towards the building and trying to hold the camera steady and all of that good stuff.

But definitely good info and things to think about in the future. I will definitely have to try to take the same picture with different times and such to see what the background looks like.

Thanks again.