Some C&C Please

[BillK]

Greetings,
As some of you know, I'm very new to SLR photography. I hiked Moosilauke's South Peak yesterday and took several photos along the way. All shots were taken with my Rebel XTi using a 50mm 1.4 prime lens. The majority of the shots were taken using a tripod. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You!

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[darren]

Bill,

It is tough to provide C&C on 36 images, but I'll give it a shot. In the future you might want to pick 1 or 2 and ask for solid C&C on them. That will get you some specific info vs. general info.

With the first group of 24 shots I think you did a good job trying to cut down on the amount of sky in the photos. Without dramatic light in the sky, it can be tough to get a dramatic scenic vista shot. Photos are made from light and lighting can be what makes or breaks the photo.

This shot has the potential for some good sky. I think a Graduated Neutral Density (GND) filter could have helped you here. There are some GND threads in this forum.

You did a nice job of removing the sky in shots like
this one.

It is tough to combine hiking and photography. Some of the best photos can be taken during the dramatic hours of early and late light. Most hiking with views often occurs mid day, so it is tough to get dramatic light. You really have to work for it. While looking at the first 24 I was hoping that you shot some "intimate landscapes". Going on to 25-36, I found that you did.

I like the trail shots in those, but I think they could have been more effective had you removed teh sky entirely and concentrated on just the trail.

Nice job blurring the water on the brook shots. Again though you see the problem with less than perfect lighting. You did a good job of balancing the exposure, but IMO those type of shots look better shot on a cloudy day. An overcast sky will provide even lighting on a scene like that and allow you to capture more detail.

The ones with the bridge are nice. Good job with balancing the exposure for those conditions. IMO the first one has too much empty water in the foreground and the second one has too much trees up top. You have a lot of pixels to play with. Don't be afraid to go in there and crop the photo down.

Using a fixed lens forces you to make composition decisions. By removing bland sky from landscapes etc. it looks like your compositions are improving. Keep it up.

- darren

 

[BillK]

Thanks Darren! I really appreciate and value your feedback.

- Bill

 

[darren]

One other thing....you have that spiffy 50mm f1.4...

That is f1.4!

Don't be afraid to open up that thing to f1.4 and do some funky stuff with it! A fast lens like that deserves to be used wide open. You can do some funky stuff with a lens like that. I mean really funky stuff. Embrace the shallow depth of field.



- darren

ps: yes, it is the year of the boar.

 

[Grumpy]

Darren had it right when he wrote that it is difficult to comment on a collection of 36 photos. But I’ll try.

As a general comment, I think all the photos could benefit from some further processing to boost contrast, tweak color, and add some sharpening.

Also as a general comment, I agree with Darren that these photos generally handled the sky quite well.

That 50mm lens is a great choice for what you are doing. On digital, it probably falls at the short end of the magic range of about 1.5–2X the “normal” lens focal length that is so pleasing for landscapes and scenic pictures. That it also is compact and lightweight is a bonus for hiking.

A longer lens might have helped exploit the low hanging cloud or fog bank that appears in several of the photos. My favorites of that feature were images 8, 9 and 16, which seemed to work best compositionally. All need tonal adjustment and sharpening to bring this to life.

The dappling effect from shadows clouds cast by overhead clouds – images 5, 6 and 8 – adds interest and a sort of “texture” to the scenes.

Of the cairn photos, I think frame 13 was the most successful. The visible seam of the trail ascending the ridge in the background makes this one for me. It adds meaning to the cairn.

Number 24 was the best composition among your self portraits. Good subject placement and nice balance between you and your surroundings.

The trail photos (26, 29 and 30) all would have benefited from the presence of a human figure, in my opinion. That’s a general rule for pictures of trails in my book. Hard to do when you are soloing on the hike, though!

Number 35 is my preferred version of the stream and bridge photo. Placement of the bridge closer to the top of the frame was a good compositional choice. This photo might have benefited from cropping just above the rock in the lower right hand corner. Be careful of blown out highlights.

The other water shots – 32, 33, and 34 – were problematic for me. The blown out highlights hurt. But I think what most left me feeling most uneasy was the lack of scale. It’s probably because I am a rather conventional thinker: I can’t get a handle on how large this feature is in real life.

G.

 

[BillK]

Thanks Grumpy! I still have a lot to learn about post-processing. I'm currently using the "Sharpen-Landscapes" preset when importing my images, figuring that's probably a good start. I haven't yet performed any further sharpening. I then generally focus on exposure, vibrance, tone curve adjustments (I tend to use these versus the general contrast/brightness sliders), and occasionally tweak some of the color channels (hue/saturation/luminance) I need to go through the album once again and do some further processing to increase contrast in some of the images, etc., as you had pointed out. In regards to the self-portraits, one lesson I leaned is that I need to focus on a subject close to where I'll be, versus a point of interest in the distance. Otherwise, I tend to come out a little soft. Images 32-34 was a desperate attempt to capture some running water to see if I could make the running water appear smooth/milky. (long exposure) I actually had to step quite a ways off the trail and set my tripod in the middle of a small stream for those shots. I'm really starting to yearn for a wide-angle lens. I seriously feel as though I'm handcuffed in the mountains with a 50mm prime. However, I think it's forcing me to put a lot more thought and creativity into my shots. Thanks again for taking the time for the C&C.

- Bill

 

[Grumpy]

... I'm really starting to yearn for a wide-angle lens. I seriously feel as though I'm handcuffed in the mountains with a 50mm prime. However, I think it's forcing me to put a lot more thought and creativity into my shots. ...

I think you are doing quite well with the 50mm lens, and are learning how to work quite effectively within constraints the fixed focal length imposes. I would not advise scratching the itch to acquire a wide angle lens right off the bat.

But if you must ... perhaps you should consider a prime lens in the 24mm focal length and f/2.8 range to start. This shoud cost less and be a lot less weighty and bulky than a first rate zoom of comparable speed. It will be about the equivalent of a 35mm lens on 35mm film format -- enough to be wide angle, but not so much as to produce a lot of obviously distorted perspective.

As for post-processing, I got my first tastes of digital processing through Photoshop about 8 years ago, after having spent more than 30 years as a professional in wet darkrooms. It was a jump-off-the-dock experience. I had to learn electronic darkroom techniques on the fly, and would say that for various reasons my education in that respect is just now advancing beyond the rudiments. I am not geeky about it. There is much to learn.

Practice, practice, practice, always seeking improvement. But don't let the fun go out of it for you.

G.

 

[kmorgan]

Hey Bill,
In regards to color enhancement in Photoshop, one of the best things you can learn, once you've got the basics down, in doing your adjustments in LAB mode.

Here I've taken one of your shots and used LAB mode to get the cast out of the neutral gray (using one of the foreground rock formations), did a linear boost of the A and B channels, then tweaked the Lightness channel to get a fuller range from total black to total white.

Finally I converted back to RGB and did a quick auto levels adjustment for the final image. Since you already had done some sharpening I left it alone.

Here are the results I got:



I could get even more color and reduce more of the haze but I wanted to keep all the mountains in the distance visible.

Kevin

 

[BillK]

Wow. Good work Kevin. Sounds a little too advanced for me though. Although I have PS CS3, I'm currently using LR for my entire workflow. Now you've got me itching to dive back into LR and take another stab at some of these images.

- Bill

 

[BillK]

I've taken some of your recommendations and made one last attempt at post-processing. The primary focus was to increase contrast, add cropping adjustments, and increase color saturation for specific color channels. It's now time for a couple of cold ones. Thanks again everyone for all your advice. You guys rock!

- Bill

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