Sentosa sunset

[sohzai]

Hi,

I am new to using DSLRs. Hope I am posting correctly here. Just took this shot at Sentosa earlier this month. I am not sure what are the flaws in it. Please enlighten me with your views.

Thanks!

[night86mare]

sorry if i'm blunt..

first things first, composition is mesy and seemingly without thought. you have chopped off many, many innocent things abruptly without remorse or mercy. the kelong thing is one.. chopping off the stilts is fine but as far as possible i would personally prefer not to chop off the huts halfway. if you must, chop off in between the huts. other than that, the rock is just creeping into the picture.. decide whether you want it in or out!

that said, the sky is definitely very interesting. exposure wise i guess for a newcomer it is pretty decent. in the long term though, i think you'd find that for sunsets you'd need gnds and/or hdr technique to obtain great looking sunset pictures.. unless you are going to do silhouette style sunset photography all the time.. the dynamic range is just too wide for digital cameras (even dslr) to handle.

so in summary, work in composition first.. experiment.. and soon, everything else will follow. cheers!

[Lumiere]

the rock cut off at the bottome is very disturbing...the sky feels like being cut off too...maybe u should try to make it wider or maybe taking it vertically in portrait mode would be nicer

[sohzai]

Originally Posted by night86mare sorry if i'm blunt.. first things first, composition is mesy and seemingly without thought. you have chopped off many, many innocent things abruptly without remorse or mercy. the kelong thing is one.. chopping off the stilts is fine but as far as possible i would personally prefer not to chop off the huts halfway. if you must, chop off in between the huts. other than that, the rock is just creeping into the picture.. decide whether you want it in or out! that said, the sky is definitely very interesting. exposure wise i guess for a newcomer it is pretty decent. in the long term though, i think you'd find that for sunsets you'd need gnds and/or hdr technique to obtain great looking sunset pictures.. unless you are going to do silhouette style sunset photography all the time.. the dynamic range is just too wide for digital cameras (even dslr) to handle. so in summary, work in composition first.. experiment.. and soon, everything else will follow. cheers!

Originally Posted by Lumiere the rock cut off at the bottome is very disturbing...the sky feels like being cut off too...maybe u should try to make it wider or maybe taking it vertically in portrait mode would be nicer

Hi both,

Thanks for your comments! I do have another 2 shots which I took before this one with a longer stretch of the huts. Upload tonight when I am home.

Anyway, not for the purpose of defending my shot, these pictures were taken between wooden-planked dividers. To enter the place, gotta pay entrance fee for the performance. In short, I sneaked and stole a shot between 2 planks less than 10cm apart. Bo bian, don't bear to spend the money..hehe..

To night86mare: Have to really admit I need to make better composition in future. Would you mind explaining the terms "gnd" and "hdr" to me? I do not know what they are. That aside, does that mean sunset shots are gonna be difficult for DSLR users? I love taking sunsets, but I also do know that our range is very little to play with.

[night86mare]

Originally Posted by sohzai To night86mare: Have to really admit I need to make better composition in future. Would you mind explaining the terms "gnd" and "hdr" to me? I do not know what they are. That aside, does that mean sunset shots are gonna be difficult for DSLR users? I love taking sunsets, but I also do know that our range is very little to play with.

gnd is graduated neutral density filter

hdr is high dynamic range imaging

the first one is a tool, the second one is a processing technique. as for what they are, google will help you, there are tons of articles out there on each of them. i use a lot of hdr in my post processing, you can look at some of them here.

sunsets are no problem for a dslr user.. i am a permanent sunset chaser.. and believe me, after a few times of experience you'll generally get the gist of shooting sunset.. the only problem is whether you can achieve what you want.

[sohzai]

Originally Posted by night86mare gnd is graduated neutral density filter hdr is high dynamic range imaging the first one is a tool, the second one is a processing technique. as for what they are, google will help you, there are tons of articles out there on each of them. i use a lot of hdr in my post processing, you can look at some of them here. sunsets are no problem for a dslr user.. i am a permanent sunset chaser.. and believe me, after a few times of experience you'll generally get the gist of shooting sunset.. the only problem is whether you can achieve what you want.

Hi,

Thanks for the information! I shall look more into graduated natural density filter. Silly as some may think I am, I am trying to not do any post processing on my photos. This is in no way trying to offend any good artists who has great skills in post-processing. Just my personal preference.

Anyway, think I gotta go read up more on the GND. Here's the other 2 pictures that I took before the 1st one I posted, think they are rather similar.





2nd one is what I meant by taking stealing the shots between 2 wooden planks.