The Kitchen

[gparr]

The positives: This is a beautiful subject and the raindrops/dewdrops are absolutely perfect. Well seen. Your exposure is also well executed.

Suggestions for improvement:
--This is a vertical shot. The subject is vertical and the background lines are all vertical. Turning the camera 90 deg. would add considerable power to the image.
--While your exposure is good, your white balance needs a slight adjustment to remove the blue cast.
--Your depth of field is close, but a bit too shallow. You've created a very nice, relatively smooth background but didn't use enough DOF to keep all of the blooms in focus. The foreground petal of the bloom facing us is out of focus and is distracting. f/11 might have done it without adding too much background detail.
--The image isn't as sharp as it can be. If the camera was handheld, you should use a tripod. If you used a tripod, your 1/15 sec. shutter speed is slow enough that mirror vibration and/or pushing the shutter button can cause camera movement. Mirror lockup and a remote release will fix that. I'm assuming that the flower didn't move. You also have the option of shooting at ISO 200 (you were at ISO 100) to pick up a stop of shutter speed and "freeze" the flower without losing any image quality. ISO 400 would probably have worked with minimal image degradation.
--You have a bright spot in the top of the background that detracts. A slightly higher angle would eliminate it. Always watch your background and frame edges.

Gary

 

[Reef Pets]

No wonder you are a great photographer, you see everything good and bad. Thanks for the information! I have improved quit well since I took this shot. At the time I had no idea on how to use the camera except for taking photos from top down on coral.
The information that you have provided on my photo along with others will help people including myself become better. I know that its time consuming to critique the work of others and I appreciate you taking the time to do so.

 

[gparr]

As far as gimmick shots go, this one seems to work. I don't find protruding limbs attractive, but the overall effect in this composition gets the job done. You used enough depth of field to keep the face recognizable. I would crop the image into a square format to eliminate unnecessary background on either side. I would also clone out the background highlights at the top on either side of her head. The fingers tend to send my eyes toward those highlights. A fun photo that works for its intended purpose.
Gary

 

[clowns101]

Thanks Gary! I will do that next time for sure!

 

[gparr]

Reefpets, Thanks for the kind words and glad I could help.
Clowns, You're welcome.
Gary

 

[pumarjr]

Here it is.

Sorry about the image size, I posted the pic using my phone. But here it is re-sized, I think its right...

Wow, Duval st. The original building there was a great historical establishment until it burned up in a fire a few years back, none the less, I cannot critique a photo of my home.

 

[pumarjr]

Please read the posting instructions at the beginning of the thread.
Gary

 

[gparr]

This is a great street scene with very interesting buildings that would be fun to explore. You chose a good angle that puts the white, ornate building in a dominant position. To make it dominate, however, means that you need to adjust the composition by cropping the image to a somewhat square format. The large area of sky and the ample street aren't contributing anything to the image and should be cropped out. If you crop the sky to just above the ornate building and the street to just below the curb on the left side, you'll see the image appearance improve considerably.

Unfortunately, the image suffers from an exposure problem that can't be fixed. Because of the time of day, you have large areas of blown out sky. Since our eyes tend to travel to the brightest spot in the image, those blown areas pull the eye away from the street scene and effectively ruin the image. My best guess is that, if you'd waited an hour or so (assuming that was possible), you would have had a darker sky that wouldn't blow out and likely would have some sunset colors (I'm assuming this is at sunset). The street/building lights would also have more strength in the scene and better balance the light in the sky. It's unfortunate that the light levels were so extreme between sky and street, but sometimes this can't be helped.
Gary

 

[143gadgets]

Great thread Gary!!!

 

[goat585]

Thanks Gary for the comments,

I have some things I can play around with in photoshop.

Tom,
This one's rather well executed, showing three levels (water, land, sky), framed on three sides by the branches. The branches do an effective job of providing a foreground element that creates visual depth. Thank you for not splitting the frame with the water line. The primary critique I have of this image, and it applies to all landscape shots, is that you need to decide what you want to show the viewer. In this shot you've essentially given each element (water, land, sky) equal billing. The image would be stronger if you decided that, for example, you wanted to show lots of water leading to dominating mountains and a small bit of sky. Or, if you have a very strong sky (sunrise/sunset), minimize the water and let the sky dominate the mountains. When capturing landscapes, move the camera up and down to shift the horizon vertically in the frame. When you see the composition that makes you stop that's probably the stronger image.

It looks like your water line needs just a touch of leveling and it would be nice if you opened the shadows in the trees just a bit to show more detail.

Gary

 

[akabryanhall]

I like this idea, thanks for doing this. I have a few that I would live to get checked out. I'll start with this one of mine.

 

[returnofsid]

This is a great street scene with very interesting buildings that would be fun to explore. You chose a good angle that puts the white, ornate building in a dominant position. To make it dominate, however, means that you need to adjust the composition by cropping the image to a somewhat square format. The large area of sky and the ample street aren't contributing anything to the image and should be cropped out. If you crop the sky to just above the ornate building and the street to just below the curb on the left side, you'll see the image appearance improve considerably.

Unfortunately, the image suffers from an exposure problem that can't be fixed. Because of the time of day, you have large areas of blown out sky. Since our eyes tend to travel to the brightest spot in the image, those blown areas pull the eye away from the street scene and effectively ruin the image. My best guess is that, if you'd waited an hour or so (assuming that was possible), you would have had a darker sky that wouldn't blow out and likely would have some sunset colors (I'm assuming this is at sunset). The street/building lights would also have more strength in the scene and better balance the light in the sky. It's unfortunate that the light levels were so extreme between sky and street, but sometimes this can't be helped.
Gary

I'd like to ad something to this.

It may be my eyes, but it appears that the focus point is on the words "nine west" of building to the left. The building, that appears to be the main focal point, appears to be slightly out of focus, as your eyes move to the center of that building, the lit area between the columns. That area, along with the ornate hand rail and flag, all appear slightly fuzzy.

The sky looks like it would have had GREAT POTENTIAL, slightly later in the day, with that dark, ominous cloud hanging there. However, later in the day, that cloud may not have been there...lol.

 

[Russellaqua]

Here's one of a yellow-crowned night heron. Not sure if my wife or I took the pic, as we shared the camera that day.

 

[Russter]

Hi Gary, always looking for tips on how to make my shots better and you are the best. Here is one of mine

 

[pumarjr]

 

[Dave3112]

Edit: Photobucket ruined the quality!! How can I post pictures to the forum with out the loss of quality from Photobucket? This isn't the first time I have had this problem with them......

 

[pumarjr]

Please read the first post in the thread for submission guidelines. I will offer my thoughts on the first image you posted later today.
Thanks,
Gary

 

[gparr]

You chose a shutter speed that gives the water a nice feel. With waterfall shots, I always think it's great fun to try different shutter speeds to change how the water looks. I like this choice. The exposure also seems to be very good, i.e., blown areas are kept to an absolute minimum and there's decent shadow detail.

The lighting is not very exciting. It's a nice waterfall and it would be interesting to see this photographed under different lighting conditions. I want to crop the right side of the image to just to the right of the top waterfall. Doing so seems to focus the eye more on the action area of the waterfall.

The biggest problem I'm having with this image is I don't see any area that is in sharp focus. The overall appearance suggests to me that this was handheld at a vey slow shutter speed.

gary

 

[gparr]

Russell,
Basically you've recorded the fact that you saw a night heron. The other positive is that you did not place the bird in the center of the image.

As a photograph, it simply doesn't work. It's a frame full of branch and trunk clutter showing no attempt to isolate or frame the bird. To be successful, the bird needs to dominate the image and everything else in the scene needs to be minimized and as out of focus as possible.

Night herons are difficult birds to photograph because they don't like being seen and certainly don't like to spend much time in open areas. You also need a long lens and a lot of patience to get an angle that allows you to fill the frame with the bird and eliminate as much of the surroundings as possible.

Gary

 

[gparr]

Russter,
Some fundamental issues with this image: the white balance needs to be adjusted, focus on the coral is not sharp, the Rule of Thirds has not been employed to make the photo more interesting, and the out-of-focus coral in the foreground is distracting.

I'm not sure what your parameters were because the EXIF data were stripped out, but I can only suggest that you try again with the camera on a tripod or some other support, the flow off, manual focus on, and shoot with either a custom white balance or in the RAW format so you can correct the white balance.

Gary