Photo Critiques Please

[skippy1975]

Hiya,

New to this site and new to photography, well new to taking it seriously. After any advice that can be given, no need to be gentle, as any advice is good advice.

Not sure how you can search for them but my user name is skippy1975.

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/ga...&imageuser=933

Thanks all in advance.

Simon

[Fourwings]

Hi Skippy,
Essentially they are nice images and I can find no major fault with them, but I would like to offer you two bits of advice.

1- Think about composition, some of the bird images would have benefited from either getting in closer or zooming onto the subject, or if thats not possible try to get the subject in the centre of the image so that you can crop it on the pc.
For landscapes just remember the rule of thirds and you can't really go wrong, having said that your Black & white landscape shot is spot on, did you take it as B/W or convert later?

2 - Most digital images regardless of the type of camera used will require a degree of sharpening, your images need just a touch. It's a function that all image editing software will have, a word of caution though, use sharpening sparingly, over-sharpen images and you will increase digital noise and colour abberations dramatically.

I think that you have made a great start, both the Sleeping swan & the London wetlands landscape are both excellent photos.
I look forward to seeing many more of your images.

Cheers,
fourwings

[John]

Hi Simon

I have to agree with Fourwings observations but I will add my own comment.

There is one area you are failing on to a degree and that is anything with white in it. White is possibly the hardest colour to capture properly. To do it you have to underexpose otherwise you will get an almost bleached out effect, as you have done with the feral Snow Goose (white goose). There is no detail here but if it had been underexposed then you could have worked with that image in an editing programme and could have effectively kept most of the feather detail. The photo of the sleeping swan (I can't tell if it is a Bewick or a Whooper) is almost spot on. A little more underexposed and that would have been a stunning photo.

Even with water you can get glare, as you have done where there are three Mallard to the left. Most of that photo is water and because it is so bright your eyes are drawn to it. A tad bit of underexposure, plus possibly a little less water, and your eyes would have been drawn to other areas of the photograph.

Overall though not too bad for an early effort. Practising on birds in collections (such as most of yours) is a good way to gain experience. If I were you I would practice hard on birds such as Swans to get the balance right between keeping the colour white and the feather detail. It's not easy but it can be done with a bit of practice.

I can't give advice on your type of camera as that is way above my standards. I use the Coolpix 4500 but the same problems arise with this setup and I have to watch what I do all the time.

What sort of photo editing programme have you got. Photoshop is the universily accepted programme that does most of what you require but there are other programmes around that are better than nothing.

John

[nightshade]

Simon just study the aces in the Gallery for ideas on composition

[skippy1975]

Thank you very much, i'll take the advice on board and let you know the results.

[MalcolmX]

Hope I may be of help .if you are a digital user then you will need to sharpen as the last operation before posting or printing your image, if you use a cannon the sharpening parameters are 300% and .03 and 0 as the 3 parameters in unsharp mask in Photoshop. If you use a compact and you use the non optical zoom then you will loose sharpness. If I may I would suggest you also look at your white balance settings as well and if you can bracket both exposure and white balance until you get more used to the camera. If you have a histogram viewable at the time of shooting then get used to reading the info this gives. Please contact me if you need any more info only too pleased to help

[birdwatcher28]

Hi

Are there any restrictions on image size. I have a few photos that are 1200 pixels, should I consider reducing them.

Kind regards
Paul

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by birdwatcher28

Hi

Are there any restrictions on image size. I have a few photos that are 1200 pixels, should I consider reducing them.

Kind regards
Paul

Yes there is a maximum image size, your 1200 pixels should be fine, there's also a maximum file size of 500K. Normally in most editing packages if you save the file as suitable for the web, it should be ok. I'd say try it. If it is accepted all ok, if not, resize it.

[haddonite]

Well done with the photos skippy1975! Love the deer!

I have read the comments of Birdwatcher28 and glsammy and have looked at my photos.

My D70s came with Nikon Picture Project software, and the downloaded photos seem to be larger in size than those allowed for the web. If I crop the photo, I can reduce the size in pixels, but still appear to be over the 500k.

On this software, I don't seem to be able to find the option to save it to a file suitable for the web. Any ideas guys?

Neil

[MalcolmX]

the software with the nicon is notoriously bad use photoshop elements 7 or cs and you can save as web in these