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I'm not entirely happy with the shot... A faster shutter speed was definitely required to sharpen up the water. I'm quite disappointed that I missed this when reviewing the photo before moving on. Also, after reviewing the other entries, it's clear that I need to up my game significantly and try to find more time to be more creative about my shots!
This weeks entry will most definitely be fun, it's called 'Running away from the camera'. At first I was puzzled as to what it could be, but upon reading the page it's literally a photo of yourself running away from the camera! I find it quite an amusing concept to be honest, there is even a link to a blog dedicated to this type of photo. The fact that there is a hint of a hidden competition makes it all the more interesting...
"Set up your camera on a tripod (or propped up on a wall, chair, or pile of books) and set the self timer to 2 seconds. Press the button and run away from the camera. See how far you can get!"
Hi Lee,
ReplyDeleteI came here via the photo-challenge, and I've added you to my feed reader so I'll be following your blog with interest! From what I've read so far, you're still finding your way around a new camera so I'm looking forward to see how you develop (top tip - shoot as much as you can, as often as you can!)
You say you need a faster shutter speed, but I quite like the blurred water droplets (and I love the pose of the duck!) There are however a couple of easy things you could do in post production that would improve the shot.
1 - cropping. Because we can't see the top of it, the water jet is distracting. It took me a little while to work out that it was a water jet! If you crop it out of the photo (keeping the same aspect ratio) it will focus the image more on the duck. If you've heard of "rule of thirds" try and place the duck on a thirds line.
2 - white balance. It looks to me like it was taken on an overcast day but the exif data says the camera was set to auto white balance. That's fine, but it tends to leave the photo looking a little flat. Had you set your camera to "cloudy" whitebalance it would look better. We can rescue it a little in gimp though!
Go into the colours->curves menu, and give it a gentle S shaped curve - going down on the left of the peak in the histogram and up on the right of the peak. Like this: http://www.paulseward.com/photos/albums/2012/february-2012/curves_screenshot.jpg
That gives you back some contrast, deepens the dark parts and lightens the light parts giving the shot a little more impact.
Those two tips will add about a minute to your post processing but help the shot - I hope you take them in the friendly helpful manner I intend them!
-Paul
Hi Paul, thank you for taking the time to come to my little peice of the internet! I really appreciate any comments you make and will take them all on board in the manner intended. I am indeed an amateur and I'm still learning as you quite rightly assumed.
ReplyDeleteI've just got my hands on Lightroom, and from now on plan to shoot in mainly RAW to allow me to play around with these settings. I shall most certainly have a play around with the things you have suggested over the weekend. It dawned on me quite recently that I don't do anywhere near enough post processing (hence Lightroom). I have used GIMP in the past, however, I felt I should get something a little more comprehensive.
I shall be adding you to my reading pane also!
See you at the next photo challenge.
Regards,
Lee
P.S. that photo you screenshotted does look a lot better! I look forward to tinkering with some of my others.
ReplyDeleteHey mate,
ReplyDeleteTo be honest I wouldn't bother shooting in RAW. It's more difficult to handle (all the stuff the camera does automatically doesn't get done, and you have to know how to do it by hand) and the benefits are limited in most circumstances. I only ever shoot RAW in special circumstances, e.g. if I'm collecting data for processing, in astronomy.
Instead, if you want to learn about editing then the tools you will need most often are the curves that Paul mentioned, and the unsharp mask. That's all I need 95% of the time.
I reckon most of your effort should be in learning good composition, and the basics of digital photography: ISO, aperture, shutter and white balance. You can the techniques from a textbook but it's also great to buy some art books by famous photographers and just look at their work, and appraise it.
I know you're not into landscapes, but I am, so I read books by Ansel Adams, Joe Cornish and others.
Let me know how you get on!
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan. Getting there slowly as usual. Lol. I hadn't thought about buying books in order to look at others work in a specific field of photography so thats something I'll certainly look at.
ReplyDeleteI suppose RAW in a way can make you be lazy when it comes to actually shooting the shot. And like you say, it can also be trickier in other aspects. I think I'll try to master JPEG first.
I actually may struggle to enter this weeks challenge by the way :(
Another thing you might like to look at (since you mentioned the wildlife photographer yourself) is the exhibition of last year's wildlife photographer. It's touring around, currently at Bristol. Really stunning work. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to go anywhere near the Midlands, but have a look and see if you fancy a road trip for some inspiration: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/tourVisit.do
ReplyDeleteYes I did notice they mentioned this. I have obviously looked at the photos shown online and there are some beautiful shots! Unfortunately I don't seem to get much time for road trips these days.
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