What’s Your Preference?

mikoyan · #1 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 06:53 AM

Another thing that I like to take pictures of besides sports is ships. Tonight I was on the Detroit River and there was a bit of traffic, so I took a picture of the Kaye Barker. This one was probably my favorite. One of the ways to get better is to get a critique, so here goes.

From Michigan Exposures

The Good Stuff:
Model Canon EOS 50D
ISO 400
Exposure 1/500 sec
Aperture 9.0
Focal Length 135mm

I really like this picture. I like the lighting effects. I like the composition. But it seems like I could have done something different. I guess if I had one complaint, the sky is a little on the washed out side. Is there something I could have done to improve that? And is there anything else that may help this shot?

windrider86 · #2 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 01:58 PM

I personally like the lighter side of the ship. Shows more details than the side that's almost too dark. I might also have a larger crop so there is room for the boat to move into.

What program are you using for editing? One thing I like to do is to duplicate the layer and then set the blend mode on soft light. May help your sky and then erase/mask out other parts that may be too dark

Hill Country Hack · #3 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 02:29 PM

I too agree a differing crop to allow a little negative space for the ship to move in to. I may have waited a bit longer to take the shot as to not have the power lines and industrial stacks showing amidships.

For me, the darkness of the bow is too much while the back half of the hull is too bright to almost blown out. Can you selectivly back off the exposure just a bit there? I do tend to like images on the darker side.

Since the ship was moving, bracketing a set of three and combining in PP would be difficult.

I have Lightroom and as for making the sky more interesting I would try playing with the light and highlight slider. I'm still not extremely comfortable with selective changes to my images. I learning and working on it. I generally play around with the sliders, curves and such until I get what I want. If I totally jack up the image, I just hit "reset" and begin again.

mikoyan · #4 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 02:41 PM

I could have pulled out the zoom a bit for this but generally I like to have more of the ship and less of the surrounding stuff.

Unfortunately, from this spot there's not too many spots that aren't industrialized. I'm looking right across the river at Windsor. there are slightly better spots but the background is usually one of the things that bugs me about my ship pictures. But I like this spot for other reasons (I can get the Ambassador Bridge in the shot a little later and sometimes I get the Westcott).

I have GimpShop, so I might play around with that a little later.

And thanks for the advice.

This is the same ship about 5 minutes later:

From Michigan Exposures

Hill Country Hack · #5 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 02:52 PM

The second one works much better for my eye as the light is a bit more even and the bow is not quite as dark. I can now see the crane on the ship. Give lossening your faming a bit a try. It will leave you other crop options in PP.

dlambert · #6 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 09:05 PM

Ditto on the crop. I'm not a "rule of thirds" zealot, but in this case, you're nearly centered both horizontally *and* vertically, which is just a bit more symmetry than I'd prefer. A touch more room at the front combined with a composition and/or crop that moves the horizon up or down a bit might be nice. I'm also seeing a tilt to the horizon that I think might actually be an optical illusion caused by the perspective of the boat, and I'm wondering if snipping a little water off the bottom might help with that.

FWIW, I also like the golden light here a lot - it really promotes the brown of the boat.

mikoyan · #7 (**permalink**) 12-09-2011, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlambert

Ditto on the crop. I'm not a "rule of thirds" zealot, but in this case, you're nearly centered both horizontally *and* vertically, which is just a bit more symmetry than I'd prefer. A touch more room at the front combined with a composition and/or crop that moves the horizon up or down a bit might be nice. I'm also seeing a tilt to the horizon that I think might actually be an optical illusion caused by the perspective of the boat, and I'm wondering if snipping a little water off the bottom might help with that.

FWIW, I also like the golden light here a lot - it really promotes the brown of the boat.

Believe it or not, the horizon is almost perfectly straight. The ship may have a little of a tilt to it because it may be heading back up north.

And thanks for the compliment.

dlambert · #8 (**permalink**) 12-09-2011, 03:20 AM

I believe it. Like I said, I was pretty sure it was an optical illusion, but I thought it was just a bit distracting. BTW, looking though your gallery, I almost think I like #564 even better -- that angle lets it fit in a standard crop a lot better, and there's some great detail in that shot. Anyway -- good stuff in this set.

mikoyan · #9 (**permalink**) 12-09-2011, 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlambert

I believe it. Like I said, I was pretty sure it was an optical illusion, but I thought it was just a bit distracting. BTW, looking though your gallery, I almost think I like #564 even better -- that angle lets it fit in a standard crop a lot better, and there's some great detail in that shot. Anyway -- good stuff in this set.

If you're ever bored...take a look at the blog.

michiganexposures.blogspot.com