Philippe Deniger

Yeah, a recrop might work, certainly for the bar and bench. The only thing I’m worried about it that the wall she’s leaning on isn’t visible, but the white window frame is, and that might make the crop feel a bit weirder. I’ll have a look at it, in any case.

Cheers for the input!

Have a go at something like this:

• Set up the camera so that it’s facing away from the light source (fire hall)
• ISO 100 — this is to keep noise down in your final shot
• ƒ/16 — will keep your images pin sharp and give you the big DOF you need
• 20- to 30-second exposure (I remember reading somewhere that anything longer than 30 seconds,…[Read more]

Just curious, how long was your exposure?

Also, looks like you were getting a lot of light pollution, judging on that sodium-orange glow at the horizon. That will definitely affect the success of your night sky photography. Not to be done for that, except to go out in the country where there’s relatively little light polution.

Well, if you’re looking to re-shoot in the absence of lychees, why not try with something with equally interesting texture, like a mix of citrus slices (orange, lemon, lime)? I’ll bet the colours would add a lot to a composition like this.

Yeah, ƒ3 in this case is not only un-necessary, but kind of damaging to the final shot. Having the…[Read more]

I think the lychees are too far detached from the glass. They kind of don’t look like they belong in the story by virtue of their distance from the glass, and the fact they’re out of focus. If you’re going to re-shoot, try just using two, and putting them just at the foot of the glass.

At ƒ3, tack sharp probably isn’t that likely. One thing I…[Read more]

If you open your file in Adobe Camera Raw, you’ll likely get the basics (ISO, aperture, shutter speed, time of day). With that information, you could go back at the same spot, same time of day with a proper camera/lens, and really capture the shot even better.

Fundamentally, this is a good shot: balanced composition, point of interest, a little…[Read more]

@danny501cgn: Wow, I’m surprised that there was that much distortion on a 50mm prime. Still, all’s well that ends well, and I’m happy it helped!

See, your original shot’s got some potential; you’ve already got a point of interest with the path and the rider, so that’s a good starting point.

First thing I would do is adjust the exposure in Adobe Camera Raw, though not too much. You shot at ISO640, so there’s bound to be some noise in your shadows. +0.5 to +0.75 EV would probably be the…[Read more]

I’d be curious to see the original.

To be blunt, I think this sort of HDR treatment is horrible. It’s a gimmick — in most cases — done for the sake of doing it, without thought about what it adds to or enhances in the story.

What you’re doing with this sort of treatment is robbing a scene of drama by attempting to give absolutely eve…[Read more]

Also, there’s a fair bit of distortion on both your horizontal and vertical lines. Did you do any lens correction in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom? Were you using a standard zoom lens for this shot? If you have one, try re-shooting with a prime lens — a 24mm or a 35mm — and compare the lines on both shots, you’ll probably find the prime lens sho…[Read more]

Overall, I quite like it, but I can’t help but think the story gets diluted a bit with the presence of the two satellite dishes and the yellow parasol, one floor down and to the right.

Obviously it’s not something you can control — well, not unless you shouted over the road, ‘Oi, you lot with the dishes and the yellow parasol! Get that crap a…[Read more]

I would say that you were too wide open with your aperture. On first inspection, one could easily think that you took the brush tool in Photoshop on Hardness 0, and dabbed it all over the photo. It’s really distracting. Stopping down a bit to resolve the leaves more would have started telling the story.

Second thing I would do is re-frame if…[Read more]

Cheers, I appreciate the feedback!

@fidelito,

Too right about limited time. I was happy enough that the bloke gave me permission to take his portrait from the doorway, so I didn’t want to take too much of his time.

That said, the one thing that I’m not 100% satisfied with is, indeed, his trousers. I had a go at doing isolated exposure increase in ACR, but I found that even a…[Read more]

Crop notwithstanding, what bothers me the most about this shot is the lighting; it’s so flat and dull. There’s little by way of drama created with the contrast that naturally comes from a well-lit scene.

Re-shoot during the Golden Hour, and guaranteed the scene will have improved a hundred-fold.

The second thing that really bothers me about…[Read more]

Oh, and the technical details:

Camera: Canon Canon EOS 7D
Exposure Programme: Av
Focal Length: 50 mm
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
Aperture: f/4
ISO: 800