Photo critiqueHere is where you can display your images and seek the comment, advice and, maybe, constructive critique of your work. Only post your images here if you are happy for frank feedback. If in doubt, use the beginners board instead. Only post your comments here if you feel you can make a constructive and polite contribution in response to what is, for some, a leap of faith in exposing their work to your critical comment.
I have taken several pictures over the summer of visiting liners and was looking for a bit of feedback. Picture one is how I take most of the boats (some of them are in the gallery) and picture two I was trying to get a bit of foreground interest. Do you think pic 2 is too busy or should I have waited till some of the foreground craft moved out?
I have taken several pictures over the summer of visiting liners and was looking for a bit of feedback. Picture one is how I take most of the boats (some of them are in the gallery) and picture two I was trying to get a bit of foreground interest. Do you think pic 2 is too busy or should I have waited till some of the foreground craft moved out?
I don't necessarily think it's too busy, the smaller boats give some scale tot he Liner - but I do think it might have had more impact if you'd filled the frame.
I just lookied in your gallery and my favourite, the one that really stands out, is "Seabourn Pride". I like the overall composition with those foreground rocks and yachts adding to the impact of the Liner.
Thanks for that Pol. There are a few vantage points to take these boats but depending on where they anchor the pictures all tend to come out the same. Seabourne Pride is my favourite too, it all came together that day the angle being different and the yachts turning up at just the right time.
Hi Mowgli, with the very best of intentions meant and hopefully received, I'd have to say that these pictures look just like some pictures of a liner and some boats. They don't really say that much to me apart from documenting the appearance of a large ship and some boats.
I'm guessing that on the day the experience of witnessing the passing of what is undoubtedly a huge ship, dwarfing the smaller boats, was something very special, but I don't think that has been successfully conveyed in the pictures.
Pol is right, you need to fill the frame - even to the point of closing right up to the ship and only showing a section of it in order to convey the scale of things. An interesting angle of view is another way of getting a good impression of the scene.
Could you post the picture Pol pinpointed in your gallery?
All you need to do is copy the BB code displayed in the larger view of your image on the gallery and paste it into a forum message. Try it and see. You can edit your post if you get it wrong at first.
Hi Ian
Here is a link to the picture Pol was talking about
I agree with what you say about the other picture just being a picture of a boat, this is why I posted it to try to get some ideas. When I was taking it I waited for the smaller ships to be in the viewfinder just to give a bit more foreground interest.
In your comment I assume that when you talk about zooming in on a boat to show the size you really need something else in the picture to help convey the scale?
I've lifted some of the detail from the sea and adjusted the tone slightlt too. This does sacrifice the boat on the left, but sometimes you need to make sacrifices.
There is quite a lot of vignetting (darkening of the periphery of the image) in the version with the sailing boat - I'd be interested to know what camera/lens you were using.
Yep, this lens is known to exhibit darkening at the corners (not unusual for such a wide ranging zoom). You can reduce the problem by using a smaller aperture (f/8 is the sweet-spot).
Can you look at the exif data for the lens aperture when that picture was shot ? (it's not preserved in the picture you uploaded).
To preserve exif data so it can be displayed in the gallery if you are using Photoshop, don't use Save for Web, but Save As and select JPEG. A compression rate of around 6-8 should be adequate, just make sure the resulting JPEG size is smaller than 250K.
I was on the extreme magnification, I suppose this doesnt help
Thanks for your comments.
I use the 18-200 lens a lot as it saves swapping (lenses) and I suppose this is the trade off as you said. I will have just have to save up and buy a better lens!
I was on the extreme magnification, I suppose this doesnt help
Thanks for your comments.
I use the 18-200 lens a lot as it saves swapping (lenses) and I suppose this is the trade off as you said. I will have just have to save up and buy a better lens!
mowgli
Just downloaded the Beta 4 of Adobe Lightroom and had a go at tweaking your image. What do you think?:
I like it.
That certainly has made a difference, the foreground rocks are all visible and the whole picture is a lot clearer, it seems to have removed a lot of the dark parts on the front of the ship too.
Linear Mode
