After some NYC critique

Six6siX · 3 May 2016 at 14:26

Haven't posted in here much at all recently but I took a trip to NYC for my birthday a couple of weeks ago and I've put what I think are the best few shots I took in an album.

Would be great to get some opinions/thoughts on the set in general and on where/how I could improve etc.

https://flic.kr/s/aHskveuLwB

Thanks

DB_SamX · 3 May 2016 at 15:39

One easy one, which is recurrent among your photos is horizons which are not "flat", especially where there is water involved. Keep it horizontal.

Same applies to columns, where possible, unless you are emphasizing diagonals/perspective i.e. keep it vertical.

Mirror has several dust sports and smear marks evident where you have shot at wide apertures, especially when there is plenty of sky. Worth a clean.

Six6siX · 3 May 2016 at 16:13

DB_SamX said:
One easy one, which is recurrent among your photos is horizons which are not "flat", especially where there is water involved. Keep it horizontal.

Same applies to columns, where possible, unless you are emphasizing diagonals/perspective i.e. keep it vertical.

Mirror has several dust sports and smear marks evident where you have shot at wide apertures, especially when there is plenty of sky. Worth a clean.

Thanks

just the sort of thing I was after. Some were intentional perspective but probably not as many as have wonky horizons

admittedly I didn't really notice in preview if anything was 'off'.

I didn't notice the dust spots till afterwards - doh - suppose I could go back and get rid of anything obvious in PP - I have already cleaned what I can of the mirror since so hopefully they're gone for the future!

a1ex2001 · 3 May 2016 at 16:28

lay off the saturation/vibrancy sliders a little and straighten the horizons some nice images though, if you want better crit pick one or two and post them directly here.

D.P. · 3 May 2016 at 18:21

yeah, pick your fav 1 or 2 and I might give some more detailed critique.

Six6siX · 4 May 2016 at 08:23

Ok, as a couple of people have suggested, three of my choices:

Central Park by ljcaesar, on Flickr

Archway by ljcaesar, on Flickr

Times Square by ljcaesar, on Flickr

Also, just looking at the 'wonky horizons' issue a bit more, I think maybe it's mainly happening when I'm shooting at the wider end - perhaps its made more obvious by the lens curvature?

Spleen Sauce · 4 May 2016 at 11:41

Also, just looking at the 'wonky horizons' issue a bit more, I think maybe it's mainly happening when I'm shooting at the wider end - perhaps its made more obvious by the lens curvature?[/QUOTE]

These are in reference to your skyline shots I'd say - for example:

It's not close to straight

In regards to the three shots you've posted above, others will give you better critique but my thoughts are:

Image 1: Bad crop (you can see a person on the right of the image). You've got the leading lines thanks to the fence but I find the large post in the bottom right of the image a bit distracting. The trees aren't too interested, neither are the buildings. Looks to be a bit oversharped too.

Image 2: Can see what you've tried to do by framing the image, You've got decent dynamic range going on but the fact you're shooting at an angle, and not straight on puts it off for me.

Image 3: Quite like this one. Yellow walk post on the right is a bit distracting though, and I'd have probably exposed for the billboards and brought up the shadows (though I'm spoilt with the D750 for dynamic range). Might have shot from a lower angle too to get more than just the head/shoulders of the people in the shot.

Six6siX · 4 May 2016 at 12:09

Spleen Sauce said:
These are in reference to your skyline shots I'd say - for example:

https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1536/25942141114_269ac56cb1_c.jpg[/ IMG]

It's not close to straight :)

[/QUOTE]

Looks like I might have one leg shorter than the other :p

I hadn't considered the skyline ones to be honest - I was just looking at other 'ground' level ones which were off. Not sure what I was going for with that one but I found it a bit difficult to frame any of the skyline shots - any suggestions? There isn't much of anything in particular to focus on so I think I was just going for an effort to try and get as much of the scape into the shot - so rather than looking at it dead on, I was at an angle and that didn't help things - so yeah it does look wonky - I think that might be what's going on with all of the wonky ones now that I look at it... :o

[quote="Spleen Sauce, post: 29456431"]

In regards to the three shots you've posted above, others will give you better critique but my thoughts are:

Image 1: Bad crop (you can see a person on the right of the image). You've got the leading lines thanks to the fence but I find the large post in the bottom right of the image a bit distracting. The trees aren't too interested, neither are the buildings. Looks to be a bit oversharped too.

Image 2: Can see what you've tried to do by framing the image, You've got decent dynamic range going on but the fact you're shooting at an angle, and not straight on puts it off for me.

Image 3: Quite like this one. Yellow walk post on the right is a bit distracting though, and I'd have probably exposed for the billboards and brought up the shadows (though I'm spoilt with the D750 for dynamic range). Might have shot from a lower angle too to get more than just the head/shoulders of the people in the shot.[/QUOTE]

Thank you, all things I hadn't considered; my first time playing with LR so quite probably overdone some PP trying different things! :)

Actually, I was finding it difficult to get shots that weren't blown out due to overly bright billboards - this was the same with the night time shots of the skyline. When I tried to get something where the same billboards from Times Square were visible they'd be far too bright - struggled to find a balance.

DB_SamX · 4 May 2016 at 13:16

I hadn't considered the skyline ones to be honest - I was just looking at other 'ground' level ones which were off. Not sure what I was going for with that one but I found it a bit difficult to frame any of the skyline shots - any suggestions? There isn't much of anything in particular to focus on so I think I was just going for an effort to try and get as much of the scape into the shot - so rather than looking at it dead on, I was at an angle and that didn't help things - so yeah it does look wonky - I think that might be what's going on with all of the wonky ones now that I look at it...

Trying to capture as much as possible doesn't always lead to a better photo. I would have probably tried to zoom in on the 3 tallest points and used rule of thirds to frame then. Same with vertical alignment; used rule of thirds to position horizon.

Think I took similar photos when I was in NY...let me go find them (not that they are better; they're merely to show my perspective on it (excuse the pun)). Few more in my set.

View from Rockefeller Center by *SM*, on Flickr

You could still correct the wonkiness and and crop in lightroom now...the colours and lighting are great though!