criticism please good and bad

warning, if you click on these they are pretty big.


http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/123104/full/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_0478.JPG
http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/123104/full/photos/photo_128.html

http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122204/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_0022.JPG
http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122204/photos/photo_17.html

http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122104/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_0015.JPG
http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122104/photos/photo_5.html

http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/

First of all can you present them in a format that lets me fit the whole picture in my 17inch monitor in one go :)

Something around 800pixels on the longest edge would be good :)

The 1st one looks pretty run of the mill, seen it a million times before.

The 2nd looks like it has potential, but the thumbnail is to small, and the orginal is way to big.
Same with the 3rd one.

yeah i need to get one of these image gallery things that lets you resize them AND see the original image... :(


if you just open the jpg will your browser resize it?
http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122204/photos/IMG_0022.JPG

http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/123104/small/photos/IMG_0478.JPG

http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122104/photos/IMG_0015.JPG

if you just open the jpg will your browser resize it?




Only if I enable it, and i refuse to.
Like hosting programs that all resize images they do it VERY poorly, with a substantial loss in quality.

Doing a proper resize in photoshop or similar then useing a small sharpen (usualy unsharp mask) retains 90% of the orignal image quality, and lets everyone see the whole photo. :)
If I was still on dail up I wouldn't have been bothered looking at those photos.

At first, I was wondering, with the second picture, why you'd chosen that focal point, and then I scrolled over and realized - singling out that single rotten piece is great! I think it would look even better if it were the only piece in focus, but that's pretty near impossible to acheive, isn't it?

With the third picture, personally I would crop a large portion of the right side off, so we only see the front 1/3 of the cat...the front 1/3 looks so menacing - analyzing prey, ready to pounce, but the back of the cat just looks asleep :(

Great pics though! :D

http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/123104/full/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_0478.JPG
http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/123104/full/photos/photo_128.html


very cool. i love doing night photography, if only it wasn;t so cold around here at the moment... anyway, although it is a common type of photo, it is a very important one that all photographers take sooner or later. this is because there are many things to learn from this pic. here's a few...

* use a tripod or brace the camera, you will very rarely get away with handholding it.
* using a very small aperture on a night shot will produce starbursts around light sources
* learn how to make the camera perform a long exposure / use shutter priority (if your camera has it)
* the effects of different chemistry lighting - sodium on the right and tungsten on the left
etc...

i like that you caputed the motion of the palm trees, it always looks good when you get a nice balance between moving and stationary.

the only things i would change are (and this is me being pickey!):
* the on-coming traffic light trails are over exposed. the camera can't know how much traffic is going to go past, to metered for when ever was there when you fired the shutter. since then a lot more car headlights have gone through the shot and over exposed it. to correct this i'd put the camera into full manual mode and set a shutter speed and aperture the same as you were just using and then decrease the shutter speed until you were no longer overexposing. it's very hard to tell this using the built in screen, so use the histogram function if you camera has it or otherwise use a technique called bracketing. i.e. take lots of shots and with very slightly different exposures (i.e. exposure bracketing).
* the pic isn't 100% sharp. as you used a small aperture, i'm guessing this was caused by one of two things - either camera blur or it's out of focus. if you left the camera in auto focus mode if would have a hard time finding something to lock on to and also with this kind of pic you want as much depth of field as possible (unless you want to highlight a specific area) so you really need to use manual focusing. also bear in mind that you get almost double as much behind your focus point in focus as in front of it - a useful tip to remember about DoF. if you did do that, then it was camera blur. did you use a tripod or did you brace it against the railing on the walkway? it looks like there was a fair bit of wind. did you leave the camera strap free to flap about? any of these could account for camera blur. i'd recommend getting yourself a good tripod. don't bother with a cheap one, rather get a good 2nd hand one off ebay than buy a new plastic piece of crap. it must be made of metal (or carbon :D ) to bo of any use. i use a manfrotto and until i bought one, i never realised what difference a good tripod made.


http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122204/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_0022.JPG
http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122204/photos/photo_17.html


very good use of selective focus and DoF. putting your subject right in the middle of a photo is always a bold move, but it works here as you really want to draw attention to it.

the only thing i'm not sure about is the background. is it meant to contrast the wilderness with an urban environment, or has it just crept into the pic as you were concentrating on the grass? it's a very easy habbit to get into with photography - using the camera like a hunting rifle - putting the subject dead center and pressing fire. i'm not saying it's wrong, just be mindful of it.

again, me being pickey - your horizon if off.


http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122104/thumbnails/thumb_IMG_0015.JPG
http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/okinawa/122104/photos/photo_5.html


good focus and the cat's doing something interesting. only problem is we're not sure what as we can't see what it's looking it. cats / dogs / etc usually make pretty good subjects as they aren't spooked by humans, mess about doing stupid stuff and are generally considered 'cute' (apparently).

With the third picture, personally I would crop a large portion of the right side off, so we only see the front 1/3 of the cat...the front 1/3 looks so menacing - analyzing prey, ready to pounce, but the back of the cat just looks asleep :(

Great pics though! :D

agreed, also watch the collar next time, it look a bit weird in the pix sticking out like that.

First of all can you present them in a format that lets me fit the whole picture in my 17inch monitor in one go :)

Something around 800pixels on the longest edge would be good :)

they are a bit big... however i guess i'm lucky my lappy will do 1400x1050 and my desktop runs in 1600x1400. firefox also does a much better job of autosizing than ie.

personally i would go for a size of 1280 on the largest edge, but that is because i run such high res displays and have a 1mbs^-1 net conn. not everyone else does.

The 1st one looks pretty run of the mill, seen it a million times before.

The 2nd looks like it has potential, but the thumbnail is to small, and the orginal is way to big.
Same with the 3rd one.

for someone starting photography these are very good and show promise and definate talent.

the question to ask yourself is, why are you doing photography? if you are doing it for your own satisfaction, who cares what other people thing of your work. as long as you enjoy making it and like the end result. on the other hand, you may want to share your work with other people and maybe try to make some money out of it (it is afterall an expensive hobby). just be aware that as you develop as an artist you are going to be pulled in lots of different directions based upon what you want to do, comments from other people and also what you believe other people will want to see. this will shape your style and define your work - i.e. a major influence. something to think hard about. please feel free to read my comments and say "b0ll0x to you, what do you know? i like it the way it is!" and quite rightly so, art is a very personal thing, both the appreciation and the creation of it. it's your for the taking.

just my 2p, 2c or 0.02e worth. sorry if i've been a bit blunt - i can't tell atm, it's been a long hard day and i need sleep.

ta,
j.

zzpza, first off. thanks. I found your criticism very constructive!

I've got a tripod, it's a velbon... it was about a hundred bucks. it's pretty good but it's not that heavy.http://www.velbon-tripod.com/products/serpa-250n.gif

that shot on the pedestrian bridge was full manual I forget what the fstop was but the exposure was 15 seconds. yeah when i metered it it was -2 then all of this traffic came out of to where :(

that was pretty clear considering the wind was blowing and the footbridge was swaying every time a large truck went by :)


I also run a high resolution... 1400x1050 on my laptop and 3200x1200 at home (2 19" CRT's) so I wish more nice pictures on the web were higher res.


photography is just a hobby for me though, but i figured i could always use some criticism :)


Honestly though, right now I'm at a point where I just take a lot of pictures and some of them come out pretty good. I'd like to get to where I can see how it's going to come out before I take the shot, and actually intend to take it like that... but I'm still in the learning phase where I just try to set up the shot as best as I can and then I go and see how the pictures came out. I had no idea that that single piece of grass with all the brown stuff over it was going to be the focal point, it just came out like that.

as far as the cats go... well. my cats are pretty good at ignoring me so they make pretty good models for me.

My objective with photography i guess is this. sometimes I see things and they look nice the way that I see them at that moment. I just want to be able to capture that moment and share it with other people.

Like that shot with the nasty brown grass... I see that patch of grass driving home from work every day. one day I saw it and the sun hit it just right and I said to myself, one day I'm going to stop and get some shots of that... and that's all it is. one split second of me looking out my window on my drive home from work. that's what the "nasty grass" is about :)

zzpza, first off. thanks. I found your criticism very constructive!

i try my best. :)

I've got a tripod, it's a velbon... it was about a hundred bucks. it's pretty good but it's not that heavy.http://www.velbon-tripod.com/products/serpa-250n.gif

handy tip, hang your camera bag off the bottom of the center section. it will make the tripod more stable and help damp vibrations, however make sure the tripod is up to the job! ;) velbon are pretty good.

that shot on the pedestrian bridge was full manual I forget what the fstop was but the exposure was 15 seconds. yeah when i metered it it was -2 then all of this traffic came out of to where :(

excellent! you were using a good approach. the more pix you take the better you will get a judging exposures. in the meantime, take several pix all with slightly different exposures. when you get home and have a look at the pix, see if you can tell the difference between them, and have a look at the exif data to remind yourself the exposure you used.

that was pretty clear considering the wind was blowing and the footbridge was swaying every time a large truck went by :)

:( not much you can do about that, other than keeping very still yourself, timing the pic for the least number of people on the bridge / trucks under it and then take lots of pix so that you have a chance to 'cherry pick' the best one.

I also run a high resolution... 1400x1050 on my laptop and 3200x1200 at home (2 19" CRT's) so I wish more nice pictures on the web were higher res.

i know exactly what you mean. :) i wish more galleries had a three tier approach; thumb, medium and HIGH res. :D

photography is just a hobby for me though, but i figured i could always use some criticism :)

:)

Honestly though, right now I'm at a point where I just take a lot of pictures and some of them come out pretty good. I'd like to get to where I can see how it's going to come out before I take the shot, and actually intend to take it like that... but I'm still in the learning phase where I just try to set up the shot as best as I can and then I go and see how the pictures came out. I had no idea that that single piece of grass with all the brown stuff over it was going to be the focal point, it just came out like that.

the scatter gun approach is good for those situations where there is a high element of chance (see above) to a pic, so the technique has it's place. developing your 'mind's eye' is a very good idea. it will significantly help improving your crap to good ratio. as will slowing yourself down and thinking about each exposure, it's composition, focal point, DoF, framing, etc.

My objective with photography i guess is this. sometimes I see things and they look nice the way that I see them at that moment. I just want to be able to capture that moment and share it with other people.

this is 100% what photography as a hobby is about. as well as enjoying yourself.

Like that shot with the nasty brown grass... I see that patch of grass driving home from work every day. one day I saw it and the sun hit it just right and I said to myself, one day I'm going to stop and get some shots of that... and that's all it is. one split second of me looking out my window on my drive home from work. that's what the "nasty grass" is about :)

you'll find that this is the same with all photographers. inspiration can come at any time and in any place.

i hope you enjoy your personal journey to becoming an artist. if i can help along the way i will (that goes for anyone in the forum). all i ask is that you help me in the same way and keep posting pix.

you may or may not find this of use, but this is my personal philosophy regarding my development as an artist:

* it's you taking the photo not the camera
* there always someone who knows more than i do
* there's always something to be learnt from other photographers / photographs.

hth,
j.
http://zzpza.deviantart.com/