Is this photo any good?

MarkM · Post by **MarkM** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:22 pm

Got a new point and shoot camera a few weeks ago, and so far I'm pretty impressed with the pics. I don't know the first thing about photography, but I took this pic the first time I used it. I thought it came out pretty nice, for me, anyway. Any thoughts? I was probably 75 feet away from the bird.

Rik · Post by **Rik** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:27 pm

Wait til you see it after the photo guys do some work on it!

Todd · Post by **Todd** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 4:25 pm

That picture sucks. Just thought I would answer the question asked.

jbdba01 · Post by **jbdba01** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 4:48 pm

MarkM wrote:Got a new point and shoot camera a few weeks ago, and so far I'm pretty impressed with the pics. I don't know the first thing about photography, but I took this pic the first time I used it. I thought it came out pretty nice, for me, anyway. Any thoughts? I was probably 75 feet away from the bird.
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Well...beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this is going to sound cliche, but if you think it is a good picture then it is a good picture. For example, these photos hereare pretty blah...grey shirts with little action, but to me they are good for a variety of reasons - some more personal than not.

Now...from an aesthetic perspective there are a bunch of rules and guidelines that could be applied to make it what others think makes it a good picture. That is somewhat a different question/issue and it sounds like you're looking for comments and critique (aka. CC).

If you're opening up a CC session I'm willing to give my highly unprofessional and unqualified opinion, but CC can be a sensitive area. Some people aren't very open to CC because it leads to questions of "what were you thinking", but I have thrown myself at the mercy of other pf'ers and made an arse out of myself more than once...so are you looking for CC? I'm game as long as it doesn't break into a flame-war.

and no I won't say "what were you thinking"...

Course Todd already gave you the Fantastic 4 version of "Flame on", while I was writing this so my velvet gloves approach will feel like a full body massage from Thailand versus his comment.

Rik · Post by **Rik** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 4:56 pm

Be careful with Mark. He's a very sensitive guy. He literally walks slow so he can make sure he doesn't step on any ants. He uses moisturizer and washes his clothes in Downey. Plus, and this should tell you all you need to know about him, he's highly allergic to sleeping in tents.

MarkM · Post by **MarkM** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 5:42 pm

Rik wrote:Plus, and this should tell you all you need to know about him, he's highly allergic to sleeping in tents.

You got that right, Rikki.

And everyone else feel free to flame away on my pic.

jbdba01 · Post by **jbdba01** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 5:59 pm

Rik wrote:Be careful with Mark. He's a very sensitive guy. He literally walks slow so he can make sure he doesn't step on any ants. He uses moisturizer and washes his clothes in Downey. Plus, and this should tell you all you need to know about him, he's highly allergic to sleeping in tents.

Nice - "Flame on!!"

jbdba01 · Post by **jbdba01** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 6:18 pm

MarkM wrote:
Rik wrote:Plus, and this should tell you all you need to know about him, he's highly allergic to sleeping in tents.
You got that right, Rikki.

And everyone else feel free to flame away on my pic.

OK...here's my $.02. And most of these are my opinion - others may disagree. Some of these comments can be corrected in photoshop.

The first thing I noticed is that the bird was washed out and was didn't have enough detail. I'm guilty of not getting close enough in. The washing out you can fix in photoshop (ps).

The bird is walking out of the frame; in most cases you want the bird to have some where to walk to. So the bird needs somewhere to go to. If the bird were to the left an in tighter it would (IMHO) make more sense.

The flip of the above is that to the left of the bird there's plenty of room, but not much going on. The tree and the patterns are cool, but not a bunch to keep my attention.

The green water seemed off to me - I know it's a reflection, but it just looked odd.

What I would do is

a) make the photo B&W
b) get the bird on the left - yeah that's a hassle in PS, but it can be done
c) get in tighter, and eliminate a bunch of "dead space"
d) increase the sharpness some
e) increase the shadow/darkness (maybe)
f) perhaps consider straightening the shoreline - it's tilted; but that's a maybe too

If I get a chance I'll play with it tomorrow and show you what I mean.

Tree-Bone · Post by **Tree-Bone** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:29 pm

JB pretty much sums it up. Bird is really washed out and probably not enough info in original file to fully recover.
When u get a shot you like but it has unpleasant composition, try different crops.

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jbdba01 · Post by **jbdba01** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:33 pm

Not clean work, but 5-10 min of effort. The shot needed to be closer to really get in tight, or more MPixels on your camera.

You get the idea though. Check out the rule of thirds, and action shots...

MarkM · Post by **MarkM** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:01 pm

Thanks for the comments. I know the composition probably sucked, since I have no clue about what make nicely-composed photo. I just thought, that compared to all the other point and shoot cameras I've owned, that this one seems to be capable of taking some nice photos. Seems like the color is much better on this one, plus I've never had one with more than a 4x zoom. I guess practice makes perfect.

jbdba01 · Post by **jbdba01** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:10 pm

Yup...I would make sure that your digital zoom is set to off (you can zoom on the pc). Here's another thing good photographers won't tell you - they take 100's of pictures and only show the good. Then everyone thinks you're awesome

You can take some incredible photos with a not so incredible cameras. 8MP is what used to be a 4x6 print - today's dslr hit ridiculous MP numbers. I think my t2i is 24MP - if you're cropping a bunch it helps.

That said, I'm having a hard time letting go of the pro-1 at 8 years.

Sample of the pro-1 below from early this morning - pretty much out of the camera - very little tweaking. As far as content goes it's pretty blah, but the detail is pretty darn good. Especially considering the light and I was holding the fish steady with one hand, shooting with another with a polarizing lens on. Camera was on macro.

For $100-200 I just keep replacing them. It's about $5-10 a month.

Now...the T2i...that's "weclome to the next level" - and even that is low end professional/high end consumer. My problem is I want a L series lens that's about $2K. Hell...I fish out of a $200 kayak...that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

Rik · Post by **Rik** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:20 pm

In other words, Mark, don't quit your day job

dunfly · Post by **dunfly** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 8:48 pm

I use a free program from Google you can download for free. It is called Picasa and is very simple and effective. You probably lost a lot of resolution when you reduced the size, but here is what I came up with.

Paddle-Fishing.com