A couple Shotts on the beach

[Shotty]

wife&son by tmshott, on Flickr

TLDR: I'm new, I don't know how to find exif info, and this was taken on a sad day.

I'm very new both to these forums and photography in general. I'm not sure how to get Exif info on this particular shot, but I did see a suggestion that I check flickr as it displays that info. I checked and I didn't see the info that everyone else is posting so if someone has any insight into that I would appreciate it. This photo was taken on my fathers birthday shortly before we spread his ashes. My wife and son were looking out on the Pacific and I thought it looked like a good opportunity. I wanted to try to show the vastness of the ocean as compared to my little family. I'm wondering if anyone has any comments on the composition of the picture, should I have zoomed in more or maybe changed where my family was in the shot?

Edit: I also used gimp to make it black and white. I think it was a color saturation option, was there a better way to go about making it b&w?

I used my Canon EOS Rebel t1i
Here's what exif info I do know thanks to flickr:
Image Width 1536
Image Height 1024
Bit Depth 8
Color Type RGB
Compression Deflate/Inflate
Filter Adaptive
Interlace Noninterlaced
SRGBRendering Perceptual
Pixels Per Unit X 2835
Pixels Per Unit Y 2835
Pixel Units Meters
Modify Date 2011:04:18 02:26:30

[JFSanders]

Shotty, welcome to DPS. You can normally find the exif information if you click on the "this photo taken with a Canon ***" and it will expand and show you the exif and you can copy and paste. I looked at your flickr and it seems that whatever program you are using to edit your photographs is stripping the exif from the photograph as flickr doesn't even give the option to click. And I could not get Jeffrey's exif viewer to work either??

What focal length did you use? This is a pretty good capture, but I think it would be better if you had them turn a little more sideways to you so that Mom wasn't showing her backside so much. Also, you could try a lower pov so that the horizon was up and away to accentuate the vastness of the ocean as well as moving back some to make them smaller (not by much) in the frame.

Jim

P.S. I did a contrast and brightness edit on your photograph to bring out the tones and textures. What do you think?

[Mark Engelhart]

Nice b&w conversion I see both white and black represented in the image. A couple of things to get in the habit of doing that will give you more options when you get home to do the post production work. Shoot more than you will need. For example on this image if you would have given yourself some room around what you percieve as the finished image you would have captured their feet and had all of them and some room around it. Also that room would give the capability to rotate the image to straighten the horizon which is not level.

[Shotty]

Originally Posted by JFSanders

What focal length did you use?

I'm still learning about photography in general, and I don't fully understand how to use or change all the settings on my camera. focal length is probably a very basic thing that I should know, but I don't. Sorry!

[JFSanders]

You have the kit lens? And it says on the side 18-55mm? That would be the focal range of the lens and when you zoom it goes to 55mm and when you retract it, it goes to 18mm. Time to read the manual my friend.

Jim

[Shotty]

Originally Posted by JFSanders

You have the kit lens? And it says on the side 18-55mm?

Yes, I also have a 55-250mm lens that came with it as well. I'm reasonably sure that I used the 18-55mm lens though.

[JFSanders]

Edit: I also used gimp to make it black and white. I think it was a color saturation option, was there a better way to go about making it b&w?

GIMP is fine but has a steep learning curve. A little worse than photoshop does. There are tutorials on youtube and all over the web for it though. You should probably start with Lightroom 3 or PS elements 9 as the learning curve is much more friendly.

In just about all programs there is a conversion option but what you did in GIMP was about the same. When you did your conversion it dropped all of the texture in the sand and water and clouds. And it made the shadows on your wife and son too dark.

Click on the thumbnail that I posted into my first response to you. And you can see the difference.


Jim

[ttosifa]

I am going to differ a little bit.

Having a kid and a wife and having frequented the beach, I think this is a pretty good shot. I agree that it would be nice if you had stepped back a bit and perhaps gotten a bit lower would have helped. But would I have been happy with this shot if it were my wife and kid? You betcha.

Here's how I differ: First, your kid and wife are not the subjects of the photo. It is more the ocean that is the subject, or perhaps your "wife and kid looking at the ocean" that is the subject. IOW, the ocean is important in the photo. Your b&w conversion does a good job of making the ocean look like you'd really see it (assuming you see only in b&w). The revision above, in contrast, blows out too much of the detail, effectively blowing out the ocean and eliminating it as part of the subject.

Moreover, I am not sure how much you could straighten the horizon. Perhaps a little. Your wife and son seem to be in a natural position (sort of straight up and down). I think it is that you are taking the photo at an angle along with the curvature of the earth (amazing it can be gotten in a photo) that creates the "tilted" horizon. But the photo would not have the same feel if you took it straight on since your kid would be hidden by your wife. Now if kids could be perfectly posed... (ha, ha, ha -- not possible!)

Oh yeah, the ocean is almost 2/3rds, which is great. A little bit more...

Great photo, but next time get the feet!

[Shotty]

Originally Posted by JFSanders

P.S. I did a contrast and brightness edit on your photograph to bring out the tones and textures. What do you think?

That looks pretty cool JFSanders! I like the way the contrast adds texture to the sand and my wife's shorts, but I think the ocean looks to black. I think I'd love that picture either way though I am a little biased...

[Shotty]

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I feel like I've learned something from each post here and I can tell that signing up with the website was a good move. I was a little worried that there wouldn't be much activity but I can see now that I had nothing to worry about. I am definitely looking forward to learning more here!

I'll be sure to get the feet next time. I caught that a lot from my friends and family that I recently showed the picture to as well. Feet are a BIG deal!