Fisherman Mainland Mexico

[gagehingeley]

This photo I took in Mainland Mexico on a surf trip. I just saw these guys going out and I thought it would be a cool shot. Do you think I should lighten the shot a little? In the sky to the right it seems blown out but near the mountains and the boat its a little dark. I am planning on printing this out but I want to get a good print and quality. I have been into photography for about 6 months or so. I consider myself pretty good in camera, but when I go into post I just do whatever looks best. If you could tell me what you would do in photoshop to improve this photo let me know. I am 15 and having had any schooling on photoshop or how it works so not the best at it.

Panga Launch | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Canon 60d 18-135mm
1/1250 at f/3.5
Iso 200
at 18mm

I know I could of changed some of the settings like the apperture to f/18 or something and iso at 100 and shutter at around 1/800. I was shooting in shutter priority and didn't have a lot of the knowledge I have now about cameras. This was taken a few months back.

Thanks!

[o.pulido]

I’m glad to hear that you’re into photography at such a young age.
Now, I’ll address some of the questions you asked:

1. Should your shot be lightened? Well, the time of day you shot it at would be great for a silhouette. So no, you don’t have to necessarily lighten up the image. I would have captured this image as a silhouette, as it lends itself to that very easily in my opinion.

2. As for printing it, well, honestly, I don’t think this image will print well, as it seems very soft on my screen . The focus was probably thrown off because of the f/3.5 used to capture it. You are right, a wider depth of field would have been better, maybe f/11-f/18 or so.

Have you tried converting it in b/w?

3. As for the blown out area in the sky, pay attention to your histogram, as it is your best friend in situations like this. I normally, and purposely, shoot for the darks when I’m attempting a silhouette. So learn to use the histogram, if you don’t already know how.

In post processing, you could recover some of that sky with the “recovery” slider. Keep in mind that blown out areas in an image may only be recoverable minimally, because that data in gone for ever. Play with the blacks and contrast sliders. See if you could convert it into a silhouette or a b/w.

Good luck.

[gagehingeley]

Thank you so much for all of the advice and taking the time to write that reply! And yah I am not sure if this will be a great print. Maybe a smaller print like a 5x7 but I dont think I would blow this one up. And black and white looks good but I sort of like the colors in this image. Thank you very much for the help!

[chrisbrodell]

That's a great catch and straight out of camera it's not bad. Personally, I might straighten the horizon a little and push the saturation and/or vibrance just a bit. The boat is maybe a little soft but you might be able to sharpen that just enough. It would probably be fine for a standard 4x6 or 5x7.

There are plenty of Photoshop tutorials out there that will help you get the hang of the software.

Thanks for sharing!

[Krusty79]

If it weren't for the blown out sky, I'd say you had a really good shot there. You have a subject that tells a story with a nice scenic beach. The problem is the common landscape problem - dynamic range. Your camera can only capture a range of about 9 stops of light while your eye can see about 20. To compensate, you'll have to do some combination of shoot RAW, bracket your shots or use a graduated neutral density filter. Better yet, shoot in the golden hours when the light is softer and you have less dynamic range to deal with.

I typically shoot RAW and bracket my shots. That enables me to use the underexposed image for the sky and the "normal" one for the rest of the scene and blend the two images together using a layer mask. Most of the recent shots in my Flickr account are exposure blends. Even shooting sunsets, I still have to deal with the dynamic range issue and I like the look of the exposure blends over the fake HDR look.

Yes, also straighten the horizon.