Pierce Resevoir

[osirisis]

Hope Ts dun mind,
by making it dramatic, does it feel better?

 

[jctay]

TS - the same picture could be taken with a sunset/sunrise and without the boat. the yellow is pretty distracting.

Agree. I will visit the place again during the golden moment.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[jctay]

Hi. Thanks for sharing.

Apart from the comments above on lighting, composition etc, I'd just like to add that it may a good idea for you to shoot the scene from various angles. Try going low, try another perspective...whatever...shoot until your heart's content. Then bring back all your shots and look at what works and what doesn't.

Since you're new in this, I think you may benefit from getting the basics and technicalities right first, and that means reading, studying and trying.

Good luck!

I am enrolling myself into a basic digital photography class and then the proficiency class next. This should build up my foundation and improve my luck. Appreciate the encouragement.

 

[jctay]

your exposure metering........ I am guessisng how the pic came out it was general evaluative ?

you MUST make decisions on this and not rely on lazy modes like general evaluative and choose the right areas to take a meter reading

there are a few images in the original image posted that you can and should try if you have the op again

p/s a CPL in this situation would help greatly in bringing out the contrasty clouds

I used Matrix, guess this is equivalent to evaluative. Isn't Matrix used for landscape shot?

It was quite low in lighting. I did not use CPL as I thought it would further darken the picture. Should had tried it anyway for learning sake.

 

[jctay]

can this photo look better if undergo HDR process?

Possibly yes in the hand of seasoned photographer. Not me though, at least not now.

 

[jctay]

Agree absolutely. You cannot control the lighting. You just have to find ways to seach for an "adjective" to describe your photo. Shooting at various angles is one sure way. BW is another. Going on zoom and macro gives you all sorts of discovery. Make sure you have enough battery to do all these experiments. Good luck

I have the common habit of shoot one picture and move on. I will make sure to explore different composition next time. Thanks.

 

[jctay]

Hope Ts dun mind,
by making it dramatic, does it feel better?

No, I don't mind at all.

Your effort did make the picture brighter and give it life. Not sure how the other seniors feel about it.

 

[ed9119]

I used Matrix, guess this is equivalent to evaluative. Isn't Matrix used for landscape shot?

.

No.... shooting landscape does NOT mean shooting in matrix

you should have control of the exposure and matrix/general evaluative mode gives you very little control vs center weighted (a little better) or spot (best)

learn to lock exposure too .... otherwise go full manual if you really want control

google 'landscape photography' .... should have tons of good advise (and bad too, but generally good)

 

[jctay]

No.... shooting landscape does NOT mean shooting in matrix

you should have control of the exposure and matrix/general evaluative mode gives you very little control vs center weighted (a little better) or spot (best)

learn to lock exposure too .... otherwise go full manual if you really want control

google 'landscape photography' .... should have tons of good advise (and bad too, but generally good)

Thanks.

 

[hersheydesai]

A nice crisp version....

and for those who like a nice glow in their landscapes..

A little PP goes a long way
Hope you don't mind me editing these pics..

 

[LifeInMacro]

I think many CSers attempted to rescue the shot through PP, and everyone seems to like to have a go at various ways of "treating" the image...a show of PP knowledge maybe...?

But I think the real lesson to be learnt here is still to get things right at the first go...save all the hassles of PP later. Any attempts to save a bad shot is futile at best.

Cheers!

 

[Ian]

Looking at the original image shows that it's little more than a snapshot. This may sound harsh but there's little thought gone in to the composition of the image and apart from the yellow of the boat there's little to stand out in the image and give it any impact.

The dynamic range captured is actually pretty good, there's only a couple of tiny points of over exposure and there is a good captured tone in the clouds as things stand.

There are serious issues with the balance and the horizon line needs to be sorted out as it's not sqaure.

How to make this a better shot. As one poster pointed out, shoot from a lower point to give a more dramatic impact and lines to the image will work well, as will moving closer to the boat and getting it larger in the image. Look at using the rule of thirds to help with composition here as does tilting the camera back to get a big sky feel to the shot as the cloud formation is very suitable for that approach.

To gain more sharpness I'd suggest you spend time working on holding the camera correctly and or using a tripod if needed as some people have internal body movement that means it's impossible for them to ever get sharp images by hand holding.

Remember the #1 goal is to get the best image you can in the camera, post processing to fix up a bad shot never works, it simply makes the shot look artificial (like most of the modelling shots posted here).

 

[blurry80]

My version of moody scene. Feels like its going to rain. better pack up and go home.

 

[rronnie]

I agree. Shooting from another angle could probably give a more dramatic feel to the photo. The boat seems to be placed a bit off in the frame

 

[jctay]

I deeply appreciated the comments from all of you. Kudos to those who actually spent time PP the picture with the sincere attempt to rescue it. All comments have helped me realize areas of improvement. Certainly, there are plenty of room for improvement.

Sincere thanks to all.

 

[johnlim]

Since the lighting is not good, and it's gonna rain, you can make it look more moody; There is a full range of tone in the cloud which is good for this kind of shot.

I have greatly underexposed the picture and increased the highlight a bit to bring out the tonal range of the cloud. Contrast has also been reduced to retrieve as much detail in the cloud as possible. (flickr- exposure: -32, contrast: -8, highlight: 7, shadow: 1, brightness: 0)

The color saturation is greatly reduced to -24 and temp to -15. Since it is more of a moody theme, I think too much color will spoil it (the boat if given too much color, may take away attention to the cloud); I hope to get a balance between the two.

I have also burned the four corner a bit.

Anyway, it is a very subjective take on this matter. And, you may want to sharpen it a bit which would definitely look much better than what we see here which is blurry.

 

[blurry80]

Today's photography = Technology + Vision , it may not be reality but in fact its just about either Nice or not nice picture.

 

[askpaul]

i just feel that... the first shot is still more important than all the PS done over here.

Once the boat is out of focus, nothing can be done to save it.

 

[twistedzero]

it seems OOF.

 

[SeAnCoLd]

Hi, first of all... All the attempts at processing the photos again, except for sanfong's, are essentially overdone in one way or another and did not do anything to salvage the photo.

Stormy skies can be dramatic skies. What you prob need are properly exposed photoS of the same scene, and post processing - stacking them and thoughtfully selecting what to show and what to hide.

IMHO, I find the composition weak. Firstly, the subject (yellow boat) is too far to the corner. Secondly, only a little bit of the metal fence is shown. I feel rather uncomfortable with that little bit in the picture. Thirdly, in the background, land overlaps right in the center of the photograph. Not very effective. Fourthly, the horizon is tilted. You should perhaps change your position and walk around the subject to better frame it. Hope this helps