Paragliding

[laura]

I haven't posted anyting for a while so thought I'd add this shot of my boyfriend paragliding two days ago. I took my camera hoping to get some good shots, but most of them came out overexposed - I must get a ND Grad filter. Anyway any critic or suggestions are welcome.

http://www.proudphotography.com/forum/gallery/showimage.php?i=1877&c=member&imageuser=1360[/IMG]

[laura]

I'll try that again...:)

1057

[laura]

Is it that bad no one wants to say anything???!!!

[jerryph]

Give us a little time, Laura... lol

Can I start with a little constructive criticism? Do NOT take any of this personal. :)

With an aperture of F/4.5 and a shutter speed of 1/800th, you had lots of room to make some changes that would have improved your picture.

When taking pictures of vast expanses, and want broad areas of focus and depth of field, decrease your aperture to at least F/8 or smaller (numerically higher). You definitely did not need an ND filter as you had plenty of aperture and shutter speed to further reduce your light, which you did not need to.

Your composition is average because here you have an incredibly beautiful landscape and a view where part of it is in shadow and other parts exposed in the sun... and the main focus of your photo is right in the middle, and a little too small to command that attention needed and the exposure is set to properly display the sky, not your b/f.

A couple of suggested changes:

- Aperture of F/8 or smaller

- This would have dropped your shutter speed to around 1/200th (I say "around" because I likely would have decreased it to about 1/125th to increase light on the colours of the paraglider, which are normally very colourful and adjusted F-stop accordingly for it). This would have of course overexposed everything outside that area, but then I could crop and maybe add a touch of vignetting for effect.

- Placed the subject off to one side a little (use of the rule of 3rds)

- in post process, I would have added a little extra sharpening and played with the levels a little

The good parts:
I think the pic has some hidden potential that you are not aware of.

- First off the subject is just great and that landscape... just wow.

- This picture comes out better if contrasts are increased and your b/f becomes a silhouette against a beautiful landscape.

- Cropping to offset makes your b/f both a little larger in the picture and brings a little more attention on him, though the fight between him and that gorgeous background lit in the sun is a close one... lol

- Most of your pictures likely came out overexposed not because you needed a filter, but because you are not yet aware of what to meter off of. In this picture, if you had used spot metering and exposed for your b/f who was in the shadow of the mountain, everything around him would be overexposed, this is normal. In the same mode, had you focused on either the sky or a sun covered portion of your picture, it would have come out as you see it... nice sky, your b/f silhouetted. In this case, there was not much else you could do, it's one or the other. Artistically, both are acceptable techniques.

I played with your pic for a few seconds and came up with this... I hope you don't mind, its nothing major, just a little cropping, playing with saturation and levels and contrast. Tell me what you think you like and do not like.

If I have offended you by touching up your pic, please let me know and I will both remove it and freely apologize. :)

Bottom line, very nice!

[colelover178]

Yes I think it looks better with a little more post processing but very cool to start with and probably wont have many more chances for photos like that. so I think you did a good job the sky is really cool and i like how he is silhouetted mostly. so good job!!

Now jerry you have great constructive critisism and im sure it helps will you do that with my last post (of my girls) i know there is alot of pics in there but you can just pick one to comment on either way it would still be helpful :) thanks

[laura]

Thank you so much for your reply Jerry, I have not taken any offence at all, I am learning so much from this forum (and the course of course!)

This photos was one a series of photos I took as he flew over from a hill on my left to a field on my right. I admit I did not give the aperture as much attention as needed, I was very concious of camera shake though (I did not have my tripod with me).

I agree this photo did not need the ND filter - this was one of the few that did not have an overexposed sky.

I have very very little knowledge of post-production techniques - I used a some free software to boost the contrast a bit as the foreground was a much darker - but I am scared of overdoing it.

You are right about the composition, at the time I wasn't thinking about this as I was just snapping away scared I was going to miss the 'perfect' shot, but I should have done something about it during pp. Your version is much better not just in composition but the overall picture changes, I really do like it!!

I do not know enough about metering yet - I am very new to Photography - I am on Lesson 5, I assume metering will come under lesson 6(lighting) -further reading is definatly needed.

Once again, no critism taken - I put it here for people to give me their honest opinion - I will never learn anything if everyone just says its nice for the sack of it. Thank you for your honesty.

P.S. Sorry for my impatience earlier:):)

[laura]

Sometimes you have to look at a picture from someone elses view to actually see whats there - to see the good points and the bad.
Thank you

[LensBaby]

Sorry Laura I was finishing up my summer semester, and had to do a product shoot that was NOT fun for me at all. =)

OK now on to your photo -

1) The landscape is gorgeous!
2) I read that you were just "snapping" to get the shot, but if you were not in that situation, I would have used the rule of thirds.


I have a question for you though. Did you shoot this RAW?

[jerryph]

i know there is alot of pics in there but you can just pick one to comment on either way it would still be helpful :) thanks

If you don't mind taking suggestions from a beginner, I can make a couple points. Now, I don't want to wander away in this thread but, I will give you 2 little pieces of advice, if I may, though the pics of your kids are really above average for someone just starting out in photography. :)

1 - When taking pics, always leave yourself room for some creative cropping. Try not to clip elbows, shoulders and heads. This may be all the rage for the modernistic look some photographers are doing now, I find it silly. :) I look at it like this... if I am cropping a picture, I leave enough room all around it so that if I put it in a frame, I see everything that I want to see... and no body parts clipped.

2 - Advice from a well respected photographer, and I quote: "If you want to make a photograph interesting... don't light all of it". Joe McNalley said this, and what he meant was to take advantage of light to give you added realism and depth. In front of windows, doorways, bounced off walls, reflectors, strobes, I even used someone with a white t-shirt once as a reflector to fill in a shot for a friend's girlfriend at an outdoor portrait shoot. Head on lighting is nice... but boring and often makes the picture look flat.

Pictures that are lit from all angles are nice, but to give a picture a 3-dimensional look, use lighting from different sources and strengths. Even the lack of lighting can make a picture interesting:


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2077/2754141473_46c0646eaa.jpg

[laura]

Sorry Laura I was finishing up my summer semester, and had to do a product shoot that was NOT fun for me at all. =)

OK now on to your photo -

1) The landscape is gorgeous!
2) I read that you were just "snapping" to get the shot, but if you were not in that situation, I would have used the rule of thirds.


I have a question for you though. Did you shoot this RAW?

I shot in Raw+Jpeg - this is the Jpeg version though.

I'm going to have the opportunity to do this again, so next time I will ensure I set up the shots properly (with a tripod!). I feel I have a better understanding now of what to look for, I will think more about composition and will definatly look into metering and exposure before I go and hopefully will get some better shots.

[laura]

If you don't mind taking suggestions from a beginner,

A beginner?? Surely not! You now so much.