Creating depth in foreground

[haildesign]

Hi Guys,
I just took a few shots of Barwon Heads Golf Course. I am happy with the composition and cropping, but have a few questions which hopefully someone can help with. I have recently purchased a Canon EOS 50D with 17-85mm f/4-5.6mm IS USM lens. I also just got a HOYA polariser filter (which sparked my shooting some more sky shots). I quite like the sky on this shot, but the foreground grass seems a bit 'dead' to me. Can anyone tell me how I can achieve a kind of vignette, or deepening around the frame to create some more interesting texture and denser colours in the grass without losing too much of the sky (and keeping the building clear).

I guess I want to make the shot more of a fine art shot than a snapshot.

Oh and here's the specs for the shot:
ISO 400, AP 5.6, Shutter 1/800

Thanks in advance.
Cheers
Jason.

[wulf]

Are you looking at creating a similar vignette to that produced by the polarising lens on the sky? It can be done but I'm not sure if it will particularly help - the grass is dead and, from what I can tell at this size, not sharply focused.

What is your "subject" for the photo? Grass, building or sky?

Wulf

[RoyL]

As Wulf said there are a few issues with the photo but, I ran a copy through Camera Raw and applied a Daguerreotype preset (this is an emulated emulsion) which produces a vintage toned image with vingetting. I also applied a vingette to the color version in CR using the vingette slider (a lens and post crop vingette).....

Here is the Daguerreotype.....



and here is a link to the color version...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3484/...565fb8b4_o.jpg

Yo need to work on the composition a bit, don't want to repeat but there is no object of interest to draw the eye. There are also no leading lines or any other such thing as would pull your eye into the image and say this is what the photographer wanted me to see. Explore this forum and also search the net for more info on composition.

The image you shot appears to be exposed nicely, but lacks sharpness because of the aperture used. When shooting landscape try to keep it at f8-f16 and adjust your shutter accordingly.

[haildesign]

Hi Guys,
Thank you both for your feedback. I am new to photography - and appreciate what you are saying. RoyL thanks for the apperture tip I will try this out next time. I had looked to focus on the building, but was playing with the crop. I am probably used to allowing copy space in the image for text/headers. The grass isn't sharply focused, and was dead (not green), but I guess I was trying to achieve the vignette approach that RoyL had discussed. Is there a way to achieve this in camera? would a lens hood add these vignettes?

Thanks for the help.
Jason.

[wulf]

A proper lens hood shouldn't add vignetting. However, if you put the lens in a longer tube you should start to get the effect. You might also get the effect if you use a long lens hood while at a wide-angle setting. Here is one I took deliberately using too wide an angle for having my Raynox adaptor mounted on the end of my lens:



That might be more dramatic than you want. Possibly a different kind of mask over the end of the lens would work better.

On the other hand, perhaps it is best to apply the vignette effect in post processing - that gives much more control over how it comes out.

Wulf