Looking for some constructive criticism

[Kanpai]

Hey guys, I'm off on holiday next month and a big part of my travelling involves taking photos as a hobbyist and I am always working on improving upon my photography. I think some constructive criticism of my photo's would be appreciated as I am always looking to up my game to the next level and challenge myself.

Would appreciate if any of the pro's on here could review some of my photos and I'd be interested in any feedback on things you can identify that I might be doing 'wrong' or where I can improve upon.

Here are some photos taken back in March last year in Japan:

https://goo.gl/photos/PJzMFz5BoN42we7F9

Gear:

Canon 600D
Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8

Thanks

 

[Drollic]

I'm no pro, however I can suggest to try and take less photos making sure every one is more carefully shot - framing, light, composition etc. Also, maybe try some basic editing of RAW files with camera raw & photoshop. If I go on a trip like that, I probably take around half of what you have whilst quite a few get deleted in camera at the time. Of that half, I'll probably process around half of those. I'd be happy with 10-15 good photos, with say 3-5 standout ones.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I think you need to learn to process, or to be more specific, you may have processed them but they don't look like they have been. A bit of tweaking in LR will lift them up.

And you don't need to take as many, or may be you do….I took a TON but you don't need to show that many.

 

[mattyg]

Hope you don't mind

There are others here that could do a better job but I always like these kind of shots so I thought I'd give it a tweak for you

Original

IMG_9492


IMG_9492-2

 

[Kanpai]

I'm no pro, however I can suggest to try and take less photos making sure every one is more carefully shot - framing, light, composition etc. Also, maybe try some basic editing of RAW files with camera raw & photoshop. If I go on a trip like that, I probably take around half of what you have whilst quite a few get deleted in camera at the time. Of that half, I'll probably process around half of those. I'd be happy with 10-15 good photos, with say 3-5 standout ones.

I think you need to learn to process, or to be more specific, you may have processed them but they don't look like they have been. A bit of tweaking in LR will lift them up.

And you don't need to take as many, or may be you do….I took a TON but you don't need to show that many.

I'll admit I tend to get way too trigger happy and will take your points into mind, thanks for that.

I've only done some image crop correction in DX Optics but have not messed about with any of these in Lightroom. I am keen to learn using this program and I still have the RAW files for all those photos linked so that will provide plenty to work with.

Hope you don't mind

There are others here that could do a better job but I always like these kind of shots so I thought I'd give it a tweak for you

Original

IMG_9492


IMG_9492-2

Thanks for that edit, it does look way better after your edit. May I know what you did and what program you used?

 

[mattyg]

First thing was to crop a little tighter to get rid of the shelf at the bottom, and some of the darkness top right. Then I just adjusted Saturation,Vibrancy, Sharpened a tiny bit etc..All in lightroom.

 

[Kanpai]

First thing was to crop a little tighter to get rid of the shelf at the bottom, and some of the darkness top right. Then I just adjusted Saturation,Vibrancy, Sharpened a tiny bit etc..All in lightroom.

Thanks for that, think I'll be grabbing myself a copy of Lightroom and seeing what I can achieve!

 

[doodah]

LR is great but a few one here have mentioned Capture One Pro. I believe it's free and fairly decent though I didn't get how to use it when I tried so jumped straight back to LR .

 

[Energize]

I see a lot of photos that are fairly far to the left on the histogram, some of the flower ones would be great if the shadows were lifted and the image made higher key.

 

[Kanpai]

I see a lot of photos that are fairly far to the left on the histogram, some of the flower ones would be great if the shadows were lifted and the image made higher key.

I'm amazed that the editing on these photos can actually produce these results, that's amazing!

 

[Quartz]

or where I can improve upon.

I'm no pro, and your photographic skills are far better than mine, but I did notice three things in general:

Firstly, in many photos you have the edge of a subject - often a building - just off-picture. Thus the subject appears cropped. you really want to get the whole thing in the picture or just concentrate on a particular feature of the subject. Look at the second two photos of the bamboo water fountain. The first shows the whole thing and is messy around the edges; the second is a close-up and the edges frame it. It's a pity about the focus in the second (see also rule of thirds below).

Secondly, you have a lot of photos with the subject square-on, rather than angled or off-centre. Such pictures make good records, but often not aesthetically pleasing photos. They often look flat. For example, look at the photos of the footbridges. You have some taken straight on at eye height and some taken from one side, and the latter look - to me - far nicer. You might also try photographing from much lower down. Look at the photo @Energize edited and see that you have the whole building in shot (see above) but are also shooting it at an angle so it does not look flat.

Thirdly, remember the rule of thirds. Look at the pictures of the monkeys and the deer. In particular, compare the one just of the deer with the photo of the deer in the foreground on the right with the crowd in the background. Again, the photo above obeys the rule of thirds - tree on the left, building in the middle, and tree on the right - and looks the better for it.

 

[Kanpai]

I'm no pro, and your photographic skills are far better than mine, but I did notice three things in general:

Firstly, in many photos you have the edge of a subject - often a building - just off-picture. Thus the subject appears cropped. you really want to get the whole thing in the picture or just concentrate on a particular feature of the subject. Look at the second two photos of the bamboo water fountain. The first shows the whole thing and is messy around the edges; the second is a close-up and the edges frame it. It's a pity about the focus in the second (see also rule of thirds below).

Secondly, you have a lot of photos with the subject square-on, rather than angled or off-centre. Such pictures make good records, but often not aesthetically pleasing photos. They often look flat. For example, look at the photos of the footbridges. You have some taken straight on at eye height and some taken from one side, and the latter look - to me - far nicer. You might also try photographing from much lower down. Look at the photo @Energize edited and see that you have the whole building in shot (see above) but are also shooting it at an angle so it does not look flat.

Thirdly, remember the rule of thirds. Look at the pictures of the monkeys and the deer. In particular, compare the one just of the deer with the photo of the deer in the foreground on the right with the crowd in the background. Again, the photo above obeys the rule of thirds - tree on the left, building in the middle, and tree on the right - and looks the better for it.

Thanks @Quartz appreciate you taking the time to go through the pics and provide some comments. I never really noticed these things until you've mentioned it if I'm honest, and now looking back at my pictures I can see what you are talking about. Will take these points into mind, thanks

 

[EsaT]

Do you just want to get pictures out of camera or do some processing with RAWs?
Out of camera JPEGs are more sensitive to getting correct exposure, while RAW gives more leeway for corrections.

Mirrorless cameras have always given live exposure preview and histogram.
That helps in figuring out how close exposure is to good, or best compromise.
But with DSLR you need to better know/remember what kind pics camera takes in what situation to avoid trial and error.
Anyway for very high contrast situations you can try lowering contrast setting.
In camera processing likely uses rather agressive contrast setting to give in general "punchy" images.
But in many situations that results in very dark shadowy areas/dark objects, while brigh areas/white objects burn easily.
And looks like camera has tried to retain highlights, so overall exposure becomes somewhat dark.


Then for composition that rule of thirds is good general rule.
Instead of having main subject in center it should about one third from one side both horizontally and vertically.
For example this could do with less empty on right side, while there would be more building on left side to give background:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn

Of course that rule must be broken when approriate.
And IMO for this centered framing works extremely well:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn


Also this could do with third less on left side to minimize amount of the leafless tree.
Just use some paper to cover left third of image on monitor to visualize effect.
Right side could be trimmed some to make that stump more focus of image with tighter framing.
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn
Though that was certainly very hard scene.

For animals/people rule is to have space ahead in direction of movement, or in direction of look, like you've done mostly. (for example with those monkeys)
Again this image is like cut from left with nearly two thirds from right being meaningless:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn
Cropping it to vertical image would help.

Also same positioning goes when there's some kind path etc in picture.
Having it out of center and in oblique angle makes image more livelier.
Like this:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn
Vs this:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn
(for out of camera JPEG that could have also used strong decrease of contrast)

And this could have used framing toward right with that nature path first reaching to left side of center before turning to right:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn


Also when photographing some individual object try to look for background.
I mean this statue has tree growing from its head/hat:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn
Of course in that case there likely wouldn't have been other way to take picture.
But don't take that as habit.


For some later cropping this could do with removal of some of that sky:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y08yVnVxcTBxVFdYeFVIQXVhY0xLMEUyM1dGREtn
Remember that images don't have to have fixed aspect ratio, if it doesn't fit to image.

 

[Kanpai]

Do you just want to get pictures out of camera or do some processing with RAWs?

Will be doing processing with RAW's going forward, I'm keen to learn LR.

Thanks for all the comments @EsaT a lot of useful information and advice there that is duly noted.

 

[EsaT]

Will be doing processing with RAW's going forward, I'm keen to learn LR.

Thanks for all the comments @EsaT a lot of useful information and advice there that is duly noted.

RAW will give good amount more room for adjusting exposure:
8 bit JPEG has only 256 brightness values. (per channel)
While last bit or two of 14 bits of RAW might not always have actual information, even "only" 12 significant bits give 4096 brightness values.

Even with automatic determined settings most RAW converters are likely to do better job with exposure in high dynamic range images than camera.
Camera simply has limited amount of processing power and time to analyze image.


There are lots of guides in internet for landscape photography and other things.
Mirrorless cameras having option of adding that grid to live preview is another good thing for practising.
And this is definitely one of the things why sometimes it's very hard to take good photo of something:
Try to look at the scene through the viewfinder objectively, and try to picture it as a print on the wall. We perceive a 2D print much differently to how we perceive a 3D scene we’re standing in the midst of.
https://luminous-landscape.com/better-photographic-composition/
https://luminous-landscape.com/changing-perspective/

Of course with that one lens available focal lengths can limit how well you can take can frame some.
Myself have now lots of lexiblity in that with fisheye, macro and lenses from 16mm to 800mm field of view fitting to Kata LighTri-318.

 

[Kanpai]

RAW will give good amount more room for adjusting exposure:
8 bit JPEG has only 256 brightness values. (per channel)
While last bit or two of 14 bits of RAW might not always have actual information, even "only" 12 significant bits give 4096 brightness values.

Even with automatic determined settings most RAW converters are likely to do better job with exposure in high dynamic range images than camera.
Camera simply has limited amount of processing power and time to analyze image.


There are lots of guides in internet for landscape photography and other things.
Mirrorless cameras having option of adding that grid to live preview is another good thing for practising.
And this is definitely one of the things why sometimes it's very hard to take good photo of something:
Try to look at the scene through the viewfinder objectively, and try to picture it as a print on the wall. We perceive a 2D print much differently to how we perceive a 3D scene we’re standing in the midst of.
https://luminous-landscape.com/better-photographic-composition/
https://luminous-landscape.com/changing-perspective/

Of course with that one lens available focal lengths can limit how well you can take can frame some.
Myself have now lots of lexiblity in that with fisheye, macro and lenses from 16mm to 800mm field of view fitting to Kata LighTri-318.

Once again, thank you for this. I just read through both those links and have learnt quite a bit!