Advice needed for improvement - DPChallenge Forums

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

01/06/2007 01:34:35 AM · #1

Hi folks. I have been on this site for a year now and have entered a few challenges and have thoroughly enjoyed it! I can see a vast improvement on not only my images but as well as the way I go about setting up shots, coming up with my ideas, my flow of creativity (not only in photography but just in general, I have never had much creativity), and my knowledge of the camera and photography in general. But, I seem to be missing something. Either I don't have as much technical ability in editing the photos as I thought I did or I just don't know what the voters at DPC want. It seems that I am close but I never can seem to get it just right.

What I am asking for here is for some of you to take a look at the photos in my profile that I have entered and give me your ideas on the photos. Some suggestions on what I could have done to better them, what you like or don't like about them as a whole or as individual photos if I did something different wrong on each one. Preferrably just look at my last top 7 or 8 scores. The others I can look at and think to myself "WHAT was I thinking when I entered this???" haha.

Thank you for your time and I really look forward to everyone's comments! I really am striving to get better at photography and I think this will help me out tremendously.

Message edited by author 2007-01-06 01:35:56.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

01/06/2007 01:54:31 AM · #2

I've been having a look. Here's some thoughts on one of your images:

This has captured a decisive moment, but it feels arbitrarily composed and too harshly rendered to suit me. It's like it fails to connect on either a dynamic or a human level. I did a quick variation of it:

CS2 shadow/highlights brought a lot of detail back into play. A selection of the sky area and dropping in a muted sky gradient helped up there. Cropping to make the image a little more dynamic, a little more focused on the boarder, while still showing enough dock to ground the experience properly. Sacrifices, however, have been made in the area of the water, where it's now a lot flatter. Selection and levels work in the water could change that nicely. In any case, this is one of the potential directions opened up by different PP of the image.

R.

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

01/06/2007 11:02:17 AM · #3

Ok, I opened the image up in CS2 and I see how the shadows/highlights really helped. However I'm not sure what you are talking about on the gradient for the sky, would this have been legal in this challenge since it was basic editing rules?? I do like parts of your image better than mine and see how it could have increased the score of the image.

Thanks for the help so far :)
-Drew

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

01/06/2007 11:23:14 AM · #4

Originally posted by svt_gEEk:

No, I actually wasn't thinking about the basic rules, just the image. You are correct, the gradients are not legal in basic. I was more just thinking of "what makes this a better picture?" It's been my experience that if I try to determine what (illegal) editing steps I need to take to make a basic-legal picture better, then I can apply that knowledge to the actual shooting of similar stuff next time around, and not NEED the additional editing, basically :-)

R.

Nullix

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

01/06/2007 11:39:18 AM · #5

Just going through your contest entries, your last 2 entries are pretty good. The others before the last 2 suck. I see that your taking pictures. Instead of taking pictures, you need to make pictures.

The ol' Ball Cap: Pretty good, nothing special. Not much detail in the cap though.

The little devill inside you: I like it.

Guilty Pleasures: Crappy background (wooden table). Also need more depth of field. And the yellow bag is distracting.

Focus on the Focus: Watch the highlights blowing out. Nice shot tho, but there' nothing special about it. (I saw that you spend a lot of time preparing the car)

And so on. You just need to step it up a little. Also, you're taking pictures not for your pleasure, but to win over points. Make sure your shots have an audience. I also check previous challenges to see what won and what didn't.

Good Luck! I hope I didn't give too many secrets away. You'll see my shots are increasing in score so something's working for me. No ribbon yet.

01/06/2007 11:47:34 AM · #6

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by svt_gEEk:
Ok, I opened the image up in CS2 and I see how the shadows/highlights really helped. However I'm not sure what you are talking about on the gradient for the sky, would this have been legal in this challenge since it was basic editing rules?? I do like parts of your image better than mine and see how it could have increased the score of the image.

Thanks for the help so far :)
-Drew

No, I actually wasn't thinking about the basic rules, just the image. You are correct, the gradients are not legal in basic. I was more just thinking of "what makes this a better picture?" It's been my experience that if I try to determine what (illegal) editing steps I need to take to make a basic-legal picture better, then I can apply that knowledge to the actual shooting of similar stuff next time around, and not NEED the additional editing, basically :-)

R.

Yeah, the weather just wasn't very cooperative that day or I could've had alot better color in the sky. I actually had a blue-gradient filter on the lens when I took the shot I think.

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

01/06/2007 11:57:21 AM · #7

Originally posted by Nullix:

Thanks for the comments. I was going for a high contrast image on "The ol' Ballcap" image but I think I went a little overboard and like you said, lost some of the detail.

For the "Focus on the Focus" shot, I did to alot of prepwork on the car and I used a polarizer but apparently it isn't a very good polarizer because all of my shots turned out to have alot of glare.

I think the shot of mine that had the most potential was one that I took without much knowledge of photography. It was the "Mean Mr. Mustard" photograph. That was one of the rare times I got creative and I really had fun setting the shot up but I didn't have the technical knowledge to actually pull it off. As you can see, the refrigerator light blew out the background.

Anyway, thanks again for all of the comments. I will definitely be keeping these in mind for my next entry.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

01/06/2007 01:22:26 PM · #8

Again, without applying any othe local controls this time, look what shadow/highlight can accomplish with your "focus on focus" shot:

original

shadow/highlight adjustment

There is a lot of fine-tuning that could be done to this image; this is just a glimpse of the possible range. If you play with S/H on it yourself, first set the shadows, then adjust the tonal range slider on the highlights, watching carefully what happens to the reflections on the side of the car; see how there's that narrow 'window" there where dramatic change happens, and on either side of that point it blocks back up again?

R.

Incidentally, in the original the quality of luminance in the BG foliage shows that, indeed, your polarizer is functioning properly. However, proper polarization for the foliage is NOT the same angle you need to properly minimize the reflections. This is usually the case, that correct polarization for subjects-with-reflections is not the correct polarization for subjects-with-transluminance. You need to seek a happy medium, or (if you wish) polarize it BOTH ways then merge the two images for the best of both worlds.

Message edited by author 2007-01-06 13:25:45.