Welcome to EPZ Dennis.



What the comparison shows is quite simple. Aperture priority mode, allowed the camera to decide the exposure, and it did a good job, exposing for the highlights, the key to night photography.

The manual exposure, uses a different focal length, different aperture, and a bulb exposure. And it has blown out highlights, indicating the shot was not first metered on the brightest light to obtain the length of time the shutter needed to be open.

So set the shot up; then using 35mm, and spot metering, place the focus point on the brightest light; read the exposure at f/7.1; note it, then re compose and set the shutter to the exposure you read on spot metering. This would have been much shorter than the 414 seconds used here, and have been much closer to the first shot. Likely nearer to 60 seconds or so by comparing the two shots. Remember, when using Bulb, the metering mode is not doing anything. You may have used it for your setting where spot was best. Ive uploaded a mod to show what this shot would look like at about 100 seconds. Scroll up this page and click the modifications tabe to see it, and view large.

So try this approach, and see if you get a better result.

Hope this helps, and enjoy the site.

Hope you feel well Nathan.

This one is not terribly sharp. Assuming you were say 10 feet away, f/5.6 would give you 0.17 feet in front, and the same behind your chosen focus point. So a smaller aperture, and underexposing slightly might have given you a better result. I downloaded it a tried sharpening with little luck, so the original may need to be sharper. The flower sort of "glows", which will affect sharpness. This is not uncommon with white and yellow flowers, so lots of practice to keep you busy!


Willie

Conas ta tu Mark?

This is a nice shot, though I would expect the exposure to be brighter using the flash. Whats probably happned is that light reflected from the white flowers has reduced the flash output. But Im guessing, as you havent loaded any exif data at all, - so it would help if you could add the data in a comment.

It looks very slightly noisy, - but perhaps Im wrong and the girl had goose bumps with nerves!


Ive uploaded two mods, both taking exposure into account; the second one has some noise reduction applied, that has also softened her slin a little. Both have the shadows lifted on her eyes to improve detail. Both have some reflected light removed from her nose.


Hope you had a pint.


regards


Willie

Much better. Conveys attitude well. The eyes are a lot better, - good detail. I would reduce the size of the reflected boxes to simple catch-lights.


Colour tone in the skin a little heavy on Magenta - but that could be make-up. I did reduce it in the mod however. I also modified the catchlights, lifted eye detail by increasing shadow detail, and cropped in the style that Paul suggested.

Compare the two, and see which crop makes sense to you. Nothing wrong wit it central, but the fact shes looking one way suggest a crop to leave more space on the right.


heres a useful link about skin colour correction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_wXx1Ng5ZY


Hope this is helpful,


Regards


Willie

Hi Sue.

The making of the image starts before Photoshop. CS6 is like any Photoshop before it, just with more features, many of which you will never use.

So, settings. Again a high ISO, very high shutter speed, and an OK aperture. That fast shutter speed was made even faster using the EC of -5/3, which is how its 1/4000.

Im intrigued why you use such a high ISO. At 400mm, hand held, a shutter speed of 1/1000 is more than adequate for a stationary subject if you have normal hand holding abilities, - hold the lens along its barrel for support. If you anticipate the subject moving a lot, then 1/2000 should be quite OK. This leaves you the ability, using the same aperture, to lower your ISO to 320, - a lot less noisy.

The noise is exaggerated as Paul says by post processing, but also I think by a heavy crop. Cropping a small area from a larger shot will magnify noise, making it much more visible, to the point it becomes an issue.

Sharpening and contrast are very close cousins, and work in similar ways, so you need to be very careful whn using both, as you can, as here, really exaggerate sharpness as well as noise.

The crop is too tight, leaving little room above the bird. I have uploaded a mod with Noise Ninja used to reduce noise; Ive added canvas for better placement of the bird; I reduced sharpness by adding a tiny amount of Gaussian blur; and I adjusted the colour balance.

Hope all this helps, - and have a go at the lower ISO, not so small crops, and see how it goes. CS6 can reduce noise. Its under filter>Noise>reduce noise, and you can adjust the strangth of noise reduction, the retained detail, and sharpening all in one place.


Regards


Willie

This is good work Elaine. The colour and tone of the faces are very much improved, and it looks cleaner.

You have to look hard to see evidence of work being done - a good sig, and there are a couple that can be improved by zooming in very close when cloning etc. Thats the trick, zoom in!

The small area above the mans head on the left where the cable was; the area above that to the left edge; along ther shoulder of the same man, - just needs to be crisper, - when you get close to an edge, and zoom in, if using the clone tool, increase it hardness; a few similar areas around the other two, - and its really all down to the same thing, getting in very close, and using edge hardness to help.


Well done overall,



Regards


Willie

This works very well for me. I think because its identifiable, and the models positioning is well thought out to add something to the original image that simply speaks.



regards


Willie

Its a great abstract for me. Perhaps theres a photographer version of Adele going on!

I think theres loads of room to develop the idea, and perhaps emphasise the fading,or disappearing, and Ive loaded a mod to show one approach. Its simply selecting the original exposed area and copying it twice, reducing size and colour. All your projected images benefit by being sharpened, and this one is the same.


Hope it spurs on some more creativity!



regards



Willie

Focus and timing are great.


Its well worth a mod that removes the glove, and as much of the jessies as possible. I would also adjust the colour tone, - theres a slight blue/green bias thats better sorted out. The eye will benefit with an enhancement to the existing catchlight, and an increase in saturation. Shoot RAW for complete control over white balance.


Ive uploaded a mod with this done, and incorporated some background blurring as suggested by Chase, hope you like it, and well done.


regards


Willie

A nice shot, - can be a little sharper. The bridge is very similar to one in my home city of Dublin, Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Samuel_Beckett_Bridge.jpg


There some lens distortion on the right especially where you can see those hanging lights are not straight, - Ive corrected this in the mod, and removed the lights and boat.

The colour balance is very cool (blue) for a sunny day, and thats also been corrected.

It is possible that using the standard kit lens, that f/16 is so small its losing sharpness. At 20 mm, this would work at f/8 - f/11 and would likely be sharper.


Hope this helps, and you like the mod.



Regards


Willie

This is a very intriguing image, and grabs attention.


You dont mention if you did post processing work to make it look antique, so I assume the scales, working with the wallpaper do the job.


Theres a few small issues, mentioned above. In addition, you seem to have blurred a length of the blanket above the baby, which doesnt work, as the wallpaper behind would be more blurred if the closer blanket was blurred. This is one of the areas Ive addressed in the mods.

Next, the baby is quite yellow. Agaun perhaps you applied a treatment, but a little less yellow can work also. More light on the left, adn the lack of light makes the colours more dense, and contributes to that blue appearance on the feet.

The basket is not level, - perhaps tilted by the baby, and would look better level. Using some prop might have helped level it. Its impossible to crop level due to the vertical wallpaper stripes, so to straighten means cutting out the baby, rotating and then doing some clean up with cloning. Ive done this in mod2, - you can do a cleaner job with more time to spend.



Hope this helps,



regards


Willie

Welcome to EPZ Laura.


It is a nice shot. For a useful critique, you need to load you exif data. On the upload page, theres a link about halfwat down on the right called More Exif Data, - click it.


Unless youve specifically altered the exposure and toning for an effect, theres some overexposure, and colour cast leaning towards magenta and blue.


I have uploaded a mod, - scroll up this page and click the modifications tab, then the modification. View large. The mod had highlight and shadow recovery workk a little sharpening, and a slightly warmer colour balance.


I will try a duo tone also shortly.


Enjoy the site, and dont forget the exif, With lighting, let us know the setup also.


regards


Willie

Welcome to EPZ Sue.


A very nice shot, - lovely athmosphere.

White balance a little off, and slightly over-saturated, - Ive uploaded a mod to show what I mean. Scroll up this page and click the modifications tab to see the mod. View large.


Its an image that can lend itself to an impressionistic interpretation, and Ive also uploaded one for you.


Enjoy the site.



regards



Willie

Its hard to provide a decent critique when an image has had quite a bit of post processing work done, and we dont know what you did. There is a very high level of noise, not typical of the camera, - so did you add noise?. There is evidence of JPEG artifacts on her neck which usually result from a re sizing issue; contrary to the last shot, the image is very flat with little detail, - as can be seen looking at the hair on her left shoulder; the shutter speed is too slow for the focal length, - should be around 1/250th. So though it has the makings of a very nice shot, I think we need to know how it was converted, if you added noise, and any other information that can help us help ypu.


I did upload a mod, - lots of noise reduction used, and I removed the hand which though undoubtedly hers, appears to be floating in the air, and she is not looking at it.



regards



Willie

Hi Columbia.


To take a landscape shot like this, with a depth all the way to the far mountains, you have to use an aperture much smaller than this. The aperture is almost wide open, and will not provide the depth you need to have everything clear.

Anything beyond the shed looks like it has no detail at all, and appears slightly smeared. Surprisingly for me. the sky has a high level of visible noise, and this is odd at ISO 200, which is this cameras lowest ISO setting.

That Creative Slow Speed mode is the wrong approach for this shot. You need a tripod; an aperture of approx f/11 using aperture priority mode, and then with the same ISO, allow the camera to select the speed. Manually focus 1/3 the distance into the scene, - probably those small fence posts just past the shed; then use the self timer to trigger the shutter, so you are not touching the camera at the moment the shutter opens. Your shutter speed will be around 1/20th or so. The result will be significantly better.


Regarding the noisy sky, did you perform any post processing after downloading the shot from the camera that could account for this and any other image issues? Also, how was it re sized, - what software did you use?


regards



Willie

Not a bad shot, - competent. Theres not a lot here to draw the eye in, such as a person fishing, etc. It likely looks better with the trees in leaf also.


Main suggestion I have would be a warmber white balance, it appears cold and grey, though the weather appears quite sunny.


Loaded a mod to show what I mean.



regards



Willie

I dont understand why you have used a zoom blur. Its not necessary.


This is an image with one side dark, and the other side a little light and lacking contrast, so its not well balanced.


Ive uploaded a mod with a small crop, and increased contrast on the left.



regards



Willie

Nice work. A bit more contrasty can work, as also a tilted version, as in the mod.


W

Welcome to EPZ Anil.

The image appears quite soft and a little blurry. At 4 seconds, the shot certainly needed to me made using a tripod, and though you didnt mention it, I doubt one was used? Can you let us know if you did use one?

If handholding the camera with this lens and ISO, you would have to use a MINUMUM of 1/20th second for a sharp shot, which would be underexposed. To use this minimum speed you would have to use ISO close to ISO 1600, using the same aperture.


The image is overexposed at the bottom.


Ive uploaded a modification, scroll up this page and click the modifications tab, and I habe sharpened this as mucg as possible, and theres still evidence of blur.

Let us know the answer to the question.


Enjoy the site,



Regards


Willie


Willie

Nice image, lovely dense colours. I like the crop suggestion too. I loaded a mod with it done, and I also reduced exposure by about 1/3 to get a little more detail into the highlights.



Regards



Willie