2010-11-10 Critique Session

Ron Warholic

Nov 10, 2010 17:58

hey

chills42

hi

Eruditass

hello

chills42

Anyone have images they want critiqued?

I'll throw one out here:

Ron Warholic

sorry a bit busy with work atm, i was hoping there would be more people to help critique

chills42

no problem :)

Even if it's a little slow, this is the first try after all

Shizam

Nov 10, 2010 18:11

its critique time?

Eruditass

Not a bad subject, I like the symmetric lights, but it's hard to draw the attention to the repetitive signs or cart

the carts seems to be in focus but the viewer is drawn towards the repetition which is slightly more out of focus

and then the cars are distracting

Ron Warholic

I think it would be interesting to see if you made the cart subject the only thing with color

and grayscaled the rest

Eruditass

yeah, some way to draw the viewer one element in the photo

Ron Warholic

yeah

chills42

@Eruditass Yeah, I wasn't too pleased with the cars myself...

Eruditass

Nov 10, 2010 18:13

the sign closes to us is quite distracting as it is large and neither sharp nor blurred

you can always come back at 5 am to take a picture :P

chills42

@Eruditass True, and if I could get a little more light I could go for a narrower aperture...

That would help the DOF, which should really include the sign and closest cart

Eruditass

Bring a tripod :)

chills42

@Eruditass or that

haha

Eruditass

I leave one in my trunk usually

Ron Warholic

getting the camera a bit higher might help too, you can exploit the symmetry of the cart corral signs a bit more

Eruditass

Nov 10, 2010 18:16

Yeah, I don't like how the frame intersects the cart

perhaps bring a hacksaw

chills42

@Eruditass haha, nice, but I doubt the store would approve :)

Eruditass

Also, I'd like to see the sign / frame closer to the other frames, which you can get by stepping back and using a longer focal length

it will probably obscure the cart, and focus on the repetition as the subject

chills42

Just noticed that the closest corral isn't the same type as the others, so simply moving down to the next row might solve some of the problems too

Eruditass

and then you can try a wider focal length, getting closer and higher up to focus on the cart

good point

chills42

Well, thanks! Anyone else have something to look at?

Come on... surely some one else here takes pictures... :)

Ron Warholic

Nov 10, 2010 18:21

Eruditass

@chills42 It's the internet, we're all talk here

Ron Warholic

so this lamp thing was near my apartment and I thought it looked nice but I couldn't feature it in a way I enjoyed

mindfully this was about 10 feet up

Eruditass

it is a cool lamp. Or maybe slightly warm in temperature

Ron Warholic

I think particularly that metal bar on the lamp somewhat ruins it

it was much warmer originally but I cooled it down to try and make it look 'icy'

Eruditass

well done

Was the metal bar present in all angles?

chills42

Nov 10, 2010 18:23

@RonWarholic Nice shot! I love the light around the rim, but I think I would want to see the middle bar in focus

Ron Warholic

nah I got a couple without it but they're only from the front and not as interesting without the projection on the wall

@chills42 yeah I think that might help

chills42

@Eruditass I like the bar actually, I feel like it gives the lamp more depth

Eruditass

I'd like to see the bar placed closer to one side, something like a third, or center it completely

and maybe a wider perspective

Ron Warholic

it was slightly wider but I rotated to level the side a bit more

Eruditass

@RonWarholic Good composition

maybe underexposing and a smaller aperture would bring out the speckles more

and I might crop the right side a bit so there is no light to the far right

at the top right

Ron Warholic

Nov 10, 2010 18:28

yeah probably a good idea

chills42

@Eruditass I agree on the aperture, but I think the exposure is dead on.

Ron Warholic

i actually had to bring the exposure down to get the detail back in the glass

Eruditass

@chills42 Perhaps, but I often like to bracket exposure just to see how it looks and compare against

@RonWarholic maybe some tinting or split-toning would bring out the ice even more?

the PF is somewhat distracting to me, I might try to pull the purple slider way down in saturation

and play with bringing out contrast of the yellowish/orangey stuff on the sides or desaturating and focusing on texture

chills42

@Eruditass I'd like to see it shifted a bit more towards blue instead of purple.

Eruditass

Agreed

Ron Warholic

Nov 10, 2010 18:33

all good comments, I'll have to play with some sliders

Eruditass

here's one I took

Rowland Shaw

Evening - sorry I'm late :)

chills42

@RowlandShaw Hi Rowland!

Rowland Shaw

@Eruditass I think the bar balances that image well

Ron Warholic

I would probably reshoot this on canon instead of pentax

:D

Eruditass

Nov 10, 2010 18:35

damn

chills42

@RonWarholic haha

Eruditass

I knew I made a mistake, but I couldn't put my finger on it

Ron Warholic

well THERE'S your problem!

really though, I like the lines in this

Rowland Shaw

@Eruditass Was it possible to get this without the crossing lines in the lower left?

Ron Warholic

wish the lines coming towards us were angled more left

Eruditass

Nov 10, 2010 18:37

thanks, I did too. Except the lower left

Not without a 20 ft ladder?

chills42

@Eruditass I think i'd try to pull out the reddish highlight on the pole

Eruditass

@chills42 I'll try that. I actually brought it out to contrast with the blue, but wanted more of a brown tone

Rowland Shaw

Have you considered cloning them out? Kinda like I did here: flickr.com/photos/ratarsed/3789814294 (honest)

Ron Warholic

I would also photoshop all the birds facing the other way

Eruditass

@RowlandShaw I'll have to try that. Major pain with lightroom on my system but I can try photoshop

chills42

Nov 10, 2010 18:38

@Eruditass Actually, it might just need to be a little brighter...

Rowland Shaw

The equality in the angles works well though

Eruditass

@RonWarholic I could do that with a different lens perhaps and getting further away

chills42

@RowlandShaw agreed

Eruditass

@RowlandShaw thanks, nearly got hit by cars trying to get in the right spot

Rowland Shaw

@Eruditass You'll bounce, surely? ;)

Eruditass

Nov 10, 2010 18:41

@RowlandShaw yeah, but who cares about me, what about my DSLR?!?

Rowland Shaw

They're stronger than they look

Eruditass

Anyone else got one or should I pull another one ?

Rowland Shaw

Two secs...

Eruditass

haha that's a cool tree

Rowland Shaw

I wonder if I should've got in a lot closer, and only concentrated on the detail in the trunk?

Ron Warholic

Nov 10, 2010 18:47

I like the angle

Eruditass

I think that'd be a good start, perhaps a wider angle looking up

Ron Warholic

getting the camera a bit lower wouldn't hurt maybe

Eruditass

with the original image, perhaps a graduated ND filter to tone down the sky and bring out the detail in the bottom

with a tripod

or some flashes off camera to light the bottom

Ron Warholic

HDR wouldn't be too bad either

bring up the shadow tones

Eruditass

45 degrees off axis or near 90 would bring out detail a lot

Rowland Shaw

Nov 10, 2010 18:49

When I shot that, I didn't have tripod or flash with me; I did however have two parents trying to enjoy a walk with their son ;)

Eruditass

that's always tough

Rowland Shaw

can a grad filter be faked in Lightroom?

Ron Warholic

yeah

Eruditass

yes

Ron Warholic

they have a graduated filter option

Eruditass

Nov 10, 2010 18:51

but the amount of detail you can pull out of the shadows depends on your sensor

and the color retained

hope you shot in RAW :P

Ron Warholic

indeed

chills42

@Eruditass That certainly would be helpful here

Eruditass

if so, you may even be able to do a bit of pseudo HDR tone mapping

Rowland Shaw

@Eruditass Always do

Eruditass

brb

Ron Warholic

Nov 10, 2010 18:53

very cool looking tree

chills42

@Eruditass Still a little hard since it looks like the sky highlights are pretty overexposed

Ron Warholic

I think the sky is about as good as you'll get

but the branch/trunk detail could be brought up a little

Rowland Shaw

There is some recoverable detail in the sky

chills42

@RonWarholic I agree, there should be some room there

Rowland Shaw

If I use the recovery slider in LR :)

Ron Warholic

Nov 10, 2010 18:55

Recovery might end up killing your leaf detail in there though

gotta be careful

Rowland Shaw

@RonWarholic Where's that option?

Found it :)

Doesn't seem to do anything though?

Ron Warholic

even all the way up?

should be pulling your highlights out of the clipped area on the histo

chills42

We've reached the end of the scheduled session: thanks to all and feel free to stick around/continue!

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