The image catalog landed here. The color is intense. Spring! Tulips! Ok! Of course I never take just a single image. Any of them are worthy to pause and admire. I shot that?
Composition? None. Just shoot. Focus. Sure. Color? Great. The bright sun makes the color pop! It’s a photo that makes you stop and admire it. I shot that? Yeah, and I’m proud of it.
Zoom a little more. A zoom lens is a good thing. There are purists. They frown upon anyone using naught but a prime lens. ? that would be a lens with only a single focal length. Ah! I have bias toward iPhone. Well, there are controversies…. I learned long ago that I zoom to compose my shots and give them more emphasis on the subject I am photographing. And in the course of editing I discovered that I cropped many of my photos. So, why not crop by zooming ahead of time? And so I do. I have a 23-200 and an 80-400 zoom lens. I tend to sit at 200 and 400mm for much of the time. ?? it just works out that way. There is no particular reason.
In this instance I chose a random image from the Indian powwow. The need to zoom is derived from the distracting background and my lack of mobility. I was not lazy. It’s just not polite to be walking in front of the audience and blocking someone’s view. I was not a credentialed photographer for the event.
Specifically, zooming closer and eliminating the tents and distracting people in the background would have helped. I was at 110mm out of 400mm. Depth of field did blur the background somewhat. Exposure was good. Focus was good. Technically this image was sound. But I could have done better.
Or, wait for your subject to get closer. Same 110mm zoom, but now the background is less distracting. Better? Both images are sound. There is a choice. I’d go with the second image.
Getting low will give you another perspective that is often different. It makes the image stand out among all the others you may have. This means getting the camera to a low angle closer to the ground. The foreground will take a greater dominance. So this won’t work on everything. But wildflowers and rocks near the shore come to mind in images that I have seen. The effect makes the scene have more of a sense of depth. The flip side is that the background ship here is much less important.
I tend to favor horizontal shots lately. It’s because the format of the computer screen lends itself to horizontal images. Vertical is important to remember. And now we have the convenience of panorama and square cropping. Keep them in mind to enhance your image. And remember to crop. Here you have two choices. I lean toward the horizontal. It’s your call.
Sometimes it’s not necessary to see the whole object. In this case the ship is a common shot. But focusing in on a detail of the structure would bring the viewers attention in a way that is unique. It can be the difference that makes the shot stand out. With digital it’s ok to get a wide view and close up. But I find that the zoomed in shots tend to hold more interest.
it’s an interesting shot. There are foreground elements and there’s the tall ship in the background. What’s disconcerting is the wide angle distortion. It looks like the tall ship is falling out of the picture toward the back. Somehow in a vertical picture the distortion seems more noticeable. But the shot does stop you for a second look. Here’s an instance where cropping can’t really save you. I like the colors, probably helped by a polarizing filter. I am still a sucker for that brilliant blue cloudless sky. Hey! I tried to get all the elements into the image. Not bad, but it could’ve been better.
No technical info.
Jennifer sent this. She did not take the photo. It raises a copyright thought. But since it is a universal disaster picture of the recent hurricane and there are probably a thousand generic images, copyright is not an issue. It might be so if it were a unique image that was instantly recognizable. Meanwhile it’s a roller coaster that is no more.
Technical: Canon DSLR
I’m guessing lynx. Jennifer did not provide details and she stripped the metadata. It’s a very nice image for a relative beginner. Good cropping and detail. The detail in the eyes is especially good with the catch light on the corneas. People tend to get the whole head or the whole animal. The eyes are the focus. And Jen has done this well.
Technical: Canon DSLR
Jennifer went to the zoo and sent me some early edits of her trip. It was the San Diego zoo. I’m a sucker for deep blue sky. The cactus in the foreground is the main subject. The shadows are a problem. Once again the bright background sky is too much for the foreground shadows. It’s otherwise a nice graphical image. And yes, that bright blue sky….
‘Halloween Walk Night Just started to edit…liked the sky!’
Technical: Nikon D90, 1/30 sec, f4.2, focal length 36
Susan, you have mixed light at twilight. It’s a difficult time of day. You have incandescent light and you have sunlight. The sky is too bright so it overpowers the image. It is blown out. To lower the exposure for the sky you would lose the foreground into deep shadow. It’s beyond the capability of the image sensor. Here’s where you might shoot raw or you do a bracketed series of exposures and use HDR. I know that this is too technical. But there’s no practical way to make this image work in one shot. Aim to the left and let the bright sky go. Or move to the right and get a silhouette.
PhotoCritical 