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01-29-2013, 06:02 AM   #1
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Marina Shots
Lens: 18-55mm & 10-20mm Camera: K-30 

Some critique on my shots would be greatly appreciated. I am very new to photography so not only am I learning my way around a camera, I am also trying to learn the art. These are mostly taken around the Marina of my home town. And one of the power station, but the shot is similar in composure as the others so put it in here.

Kit 18-55mm lens, 1/200 f13 ISO 100 55mm



Kit 18-55mm lens, 1/160 f7.1 ISO 100 20mm



Sigma 10-20mm F3.5, 1/1000 f4.5 ISO 100 10mm



Sigma 10-20mm F3.5, 1/50 f9 ISO 100 20mm




Last edited by dcBear78; 01-29-2013 at 10:20 PM.
01-29-2013, 09:41 PM   #2
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Too many images (and it's late where I am) for any real criticism. I like the third a lot.
Watch your framing - the house in the second would probably look better if the lines of the house (the trim & gutters, etc.) were square to the frame of the image.
Nice scenes.
Thanks for sharing.
01-30-2013, 06:53 AM   #3
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1. The composition kind of follows the rule of thirds. It could have a little more water instead of sky, but that's not really a problem. You can try cropping a little from the top and the left, just so you see for yourself if it brings out the subjects more. Here you might want to adjust the white balance so the white boats don's seem so blue. But this is a good shot, has some repeating elements (the docked boats), leading line, level horizon. ISO 100 and f13 were the right choices.

2. You had good light here, but this kind of light is also hard to capture, especially because of the contrast - bright house, but shadows beneath it. If you shoot raw you can try to work with this later (using curves). Also, if you have auto WB, the camera will always try to neutralize it, so it will neutralize the orange colours of a sunset. You can try using Daylight or CTE white balance for these. The other thing is, you used the 18-55mm kit lens for this photo. The kit lens has a lot of distortion at the wide end (can make things look like they are reflected in a spoon). And the other problem was mentioned by jford - the camera was tilted a little, which exaggerates this distortion. Your other lens would probably perform better here, but I know that you don't always have the time to change lenses, etc. (especially when the sun is quickly sinking!)

3. Nice composition, good idea there and good use of wide angle. The only problem is, the front part is OoF (out of focus). You can make the DoF (depth of field, the area that is in-focus) wider by dialing a higher F-number. But usually you don't want to go above f14, because that can start degrading the overall quality due to diffraction). Oh and btw, if you have a large white object in the frame, it can trick the camera into thinking that the scene is brighter than it actually is. You can use exposure compensation to fix that.

4. Power plant. Nothing really to say. Its a good shot, but maybe has a little too much empty space in the top right corner. I notice here you could fix some chromatic aberration (the slight glow of cyan and red around the chimney to the left). These are tiny things that usually only photographers consciously notice, but they are things that can be distracting. If you shoot jpeg, Pentax can automatically try to fix that in-camera, but maybe only for Pentax lenses, not sure about Sigma. If you shoot raw, you can use software to fix it later.

Overall, I think you clearly have some good ideas about composition and the general settings for the photo. From here on, its just all about details. Thanks for posting and continue shooting
01-30-2013, 04:43 PM   #4
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Thankyou Na Horuk for your responses. I am shooting in RAW which is a god send as it gives some leeway to fix my photographic mistakes in post processing (also new to me and something I am learning).

QuoteOriginally posted by Na Horuk Quote
1. The composition kind of follows the rule of thirds. It could have a little more water instead of sky, but that's not really a problem. You can try cropping a little from the top and the left, just so you see for yourself if it brings out the subjects more. Here you might want to adjust the white balance so the white boats don's seem so blue. But this is a good shot, has some repeating elements (the docked boats), leading line, level horizon. ISO 100 and f13 were the right choices.
Was shot very late in the afternoon and the boats were completely in shade. I guess I gave it a fairly cool white balance as I like the effect of the sky kind of becoming purple. But as you say at the expense of the tone of the boats. Could not get more water in the lower part of the shot as it was low tide and I would have got the mud in the near side bank in the shot. Other bits of advice taken and an alternative provided. Warmed up and cropped a bit. Also added a virtual filter to the sky to give back some of the colour gradation.



QuoteOriginally posted by Na Horuk Quote
2. You had good light here, but this kind of light is also hard to capture, especially because of the contrast - bright house, but shadows beneath it. If you shoot raw you can try to work with this later (using curves). Also, if you have auto WB, the camera will always try to neutralize it, so it will neutralize the orange colours of a sunset. You can try using Daylight or CTE white balance for these. The other thing is, you used the 18-55mm kit lens for this photo. The kit lens has a lot of distortion at the wide end (can make things look like they are reflected in a spoon). And the other problem was mentioned by jford - the camera was tilted a little, which exaggerates this distortion. Your other lens would probably perform better here, but I know that you don't always have the time to change lenses, etc. (especially when the sun is quickly sinking!)
Got to this about half hour too late and had very bad shadow across half of my subject. This is much worse pre-PP as I brought the shadows up quite a bit to get a usable image. Not sure what you mean by camera level? The scene is set on a hill which may be throwing your view off (and cause I know what I am looking at it looks normal to me). Or do you mean I should have taken the shot further to the left so the building was square to me? The lens was all I had at this time. Will try and reproduce with my new lens. My actual aim for this shot was to get a picture of my car, with this building in the background providing a kind of buttery reflection on the car. I took a closer picture and then realised I had an awesome, photogenic building there and took some steps back to get the lot in. The original intended image... For no reason really.



QuoteOriginally posted by Na Horuk Quote
3. Nice composition, good idea there and good use of wide angle. The only problem is, the front part is OoF (out of focus). You can make the DoF (depth of field, the area that is in-focus) wider by dialing a higher F-number. But usually you don't want to go above f14, because that can start degrading the overall quality due to diffraction). Oh and btw, if you have a large white object in the frame, it can trick the camera into thinking that the scene is brighter than it actually is. You can use exposure compensation to fix that.
Agreed, and was my intention. My earlier shots were at a higher F-stop but didn't turn out as well as this one (I thought). Here is the best of them. Maybe over did it at f18 and 1/60. Details on the boat are just that little bit softer, but over all you may be right and this is the better image. Would like to take it again, with a small tripod so as not to get my own shadow in the picture though.




QuoteOriginally posted by Na Horuk Quote
4. Power plant. Nothing really to say. Its a good shot, but maybe has a little too much empty space in the top right corner. I notice here you could fix some chromatic aberration (the slight glow of cyan and red around the chimney to the left). These are tiny things that usually only photographers consciously notice, but they are things that can be distracting. If you shoot jpeg, Pentax can automatically try to fix that in-camera, but maybe only for Pentax lenses, not sure about Sigma. If you shoot raw, you can use software to fix it later.
Guess I kept space on the right because firstly I wanted to show the sunset and also to keep some of that greenery in the shot to counter the ugliness of industry. I am going to have to look up the chromatic aberration you mentioned cause I still got no idea what I am looking for. But no doubt once I am educated on this I will notice it all the time.

Thanks again for your input. I am trying to take this all in and then get out there and experiment.

01-30-2013, 04:57 PM   #5
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Well now that you posted all of this I realize you actually know quite a bit about photography, so some of my advice was a bit presumptuous. I think the versions you posted now are better. With the photo of the catamaran and the rope - there really isn't much you can do with an object that close. You can try using photomerge in PS or focus stacking software to merge the two photos together into a single sharp one. This is often done when an object is near the lens, where the DoF becomes shallower. Macro shooters do this all the time.
So, good stuff. Also, nice car
01-30-2013, 11:20 PM   #6
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QuoteOriginally posted by Na Horuk Quote
Well now that you posted all of this I realize you actually know quite a bit about photography, so some of my advice was a bit presumptuous. I think the versions you posted now are better.
Lol.... Yeah with my one month of owning a camera, I am an expert already....haha. So the altered ones are better? I think so.
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