Thanks! That confirms exactly what I’ve been thinking. Naturally, I would have liked to have something interesting to focus on, like a fish on a bicycle or a purple frog, but it just wasn’t there.
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Critics Corner
- Thread starter Alexander.Of.Oz
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you could just get in closer! your weeds weren't necessarily uninteresting, they were just too wispy in the second image.
I tried to keep it exactly as I saw it - on a dark hazy winter day.
I don’t like to alter colours. The water in the background is that slightly brownish colour because the sand here is like brown sugar.
Yes. I thought about cropping to make the weeds bigger, but I’d lose the sparkles and shading.
It’s a 2013 Canon Rebel T5i with 75-300 4-5.6 USM. It was not a great lens with slow/inaccurate autofocus and fringing. (but I guess for under $200 for a telephoto lens it wasn’t bad)
I think the last one is completely unprocessed. The other two (weed ones) were just sharpened a bit, but no colour enhancement. (maybe slight contrast on the first one)
If these are Raw files I think with a bit of time in Photoshop you could get half decent images out of those first two but the exposure on each one isn't great and the compositions are poor.
These type of images are high value for graphic designers. Not trying to take away from the art of what you made. But when I worked for a design firm they would pay full price to license these types of backgrounds from various photographers.
Next question: cropping. What would you say is the best crop for something like this. Is it best to crop in to make the blue jay bigger and lose the sun/beach/bush shape - or leave it as is?
I wish somebody would pay me for it.
So I'm a big believer of getting the composition roughly correct in camera. Admittedly, I shoot like a drunken sailor a lot of the time so I am fixing horizons, but I try to get the subject roughly where I want it while shooting and then finesse the crop in post.Next question: cropping. What would you say is the best crop for something like this. Is it best to crop in to make the blue jay bigger and lose the sun/beach/bush shape - or leave it as is?
View attachment 2546213
I wish somebody would pay me for it.
Not having been standing next to you for this image, it's hard to say exactly what I would have done, but based on what I can see from your frame, I would have put the bird on the upper left rule of thirds line. Compositionally, you don't need all the trees on the left side cluttering up the image, and you've cut off the pretty sunset on the right. You have really lovely rim light going on around the tree limbs closest to the bird.
I do a lot of center compositions in my work due to some of the cameras I use, but this is not a scene crying out for a center comp. The bird gets lost too much in all the branches, and I do think if you'd rotated to get more of the lake behind you you'd have had more open space that would have highlighted the bird better.
This is a really crummy content aware fill recrop from Photoshop, but it shows how I would have composed it in camera, even if some of the elements ended up being wrong; I suspect you might have had a stronger tree trunk on the right where those branches are coming in top right, which may or may not have played into your decision while standing there, but this is just an extremely rough example.
Thanks. I totally agree with what you’re saying there. Part of the reason most of my shots are centred is that my camera’s autofocus is fairly terrible unless it’s centre focus - and the viewfinder is crap for manual focus. Also, if I went wide, I’d get a bit of roof overhang in the shot. (those are my excuses and I’m sticking with it )
I need a better camera.
)I need a better camera.