[Darrell Raw]

Some moody pics taken today, we had awesome light due to a long brewing afternoon storm.

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Last edited by Darrell Raw; 04-21-2012 at 03:51 PM.

[MSL]

The first picture is like a painting and would look good printed large. Well done. Nice also to see what the kit lens is capable of producing. I'll need to use mine more often for landscape images.

[Darrell Raw]

Thank you, yes first was kit lens, which I find to be far better than I'd expect. I also had the Samsung (D-Xenon) equivalent of the DA 18-55 (non-WR) and I have to say the WR lens is significantly better. The three flower close-ups were actually a Pentax-M 50mm f2 lens, only the tree is the 135mm.

[bezuidar]

First one attracts my attention! Will looks nice in a canvas print. Well done!

[grainbelt]

#1 was really interesting until you raised the black point to a level where you have black clouds, black trees, black dock detail, and black water. The vignette is also perhaps a bit strong. Some of that is my taste more than a criticism, but I'd expect an intentional high-contrast shot to have a similar cluster of highlights, and you've retained all of that detail. Would be curious to see another more gently processed version.

The flower pics all lack sharpness and the light from behind removed detail from the stamen. The leaf and petal edges all have halos, either from oversharpening or CA from the lens.

The tree photo is a bit better technically but the composition isn't really speaking to me for some reason. I'd be tempted to layer off and desaturate the green fringing along the tree trunk and center-left out of focus highlights.

A lot of blue/green fringing on the last photo as well.

[grainbelt]

Thanks for the original, it explains everything - your image is about a full stop underexposed, and you lost the shadow detail as a result.

EXIF data shows spot metering - if that point was the boat, there's your problem, as it is the brightest part of the scene. See how the camera exposed it and it became 18% grey? That is what it does.

If you have the blinkies turned on in the review mode you'd see blue flashing in the lost shadows. Histogram would have been bunched to the left as well. Best thing about digital is instant feedback - I know there are some on the web who constantly deride 'chimping' (reviewing the image after a shot and oohing and ahhing) but it is really a valuable part of the process.