First touch with a DSLR

[sunboi80]

Bro

ur shots all too blur, if it was me, i would have deleted almost everything away. I am abit particular about soft pictures. Sorry if i am too blunt.

I notice that some of ur pics u are using ISO400 and f5.6 and 1/2s exposure... Are u using a tripod or handheld? I am not very familiar with canon sys, IS means Image Stabilizer? i think for exposure time of 1/2s it's better to use a tripod rather than ur IS (if u are not using 1). When using tripod, u shld switch off IS, at least tis is wat shld be done using nikon sys

for landscape pics since u need a large DOF, u wouldn't use f5.6 try to use f11 or if ur lens allow f16 and ISO 100, 200 at most... unless really really no choice... 1/2 s is abit slow even with IS i feel.

frm ur pics i think most of them are taken with f/5.6 or below right,except the harborfront pic? to compensate for the dim lighting? :think: actually i look thru' all the soft pics and strangely i did not find a single pt of focus, did u manual focus? even with f5.6 there should at least be a pt/part that is sharp. many were like out of focus. is ur lens a bad copy?

Like wat the prev posts said, work with your composition first, think wat u wan to shoot before u put ur eyes into the viewfinder to compose ur shot.

There are many pics posted in the forum u can take them as reference and ask if unsure, the CSers are all pretty friendly...

Anyway good attempt, hope u have fun with ur new gadget/toy and keep shooting to improve...

just my 2 cents...

 

[evo-lution]

I am still newbie too...

But I felt the pix is not sharp at all...
may be the weather or my note book monitor is blur...:think:

Anyway I think is better for you select those pix you like best and post it.
there are too many.. and I felt some pix is a mess (Dont mind I said that:embrass

I think you need to work on the composition and what you really want to shot.
the way I see it... is you just shot and shot....without any idea what you really want to show or express in the pix....

Anyway let us improve...

ok, will work on composition n try to be more artistic?? nx time. haha, thx for the comments btw, appreciate it.

Whoa, that's a lot of pictures there..

#56 and #61 caught my eye. #56 has extreme potential because of the water shooting through the light (in a way) -- just that the focus was a bit off and/or there wasn't enough depth of field.

Personally, I think you need to work on 'seeing art'. Most people are not interested in normal everyday snapshots-- you have to have something special and meaningful in the picture to attract people to see it as art.

ok, i get ur pt, artistic shots... btw what exactly is depth of field? how does it affect the pics? well, #56 is one of my personal favourites too. At first too a few shots, then found that that particular light quite glaring so i tried to "merge" them tgt and yea thats the result. haha, sounds abit stupid thou.

I agree with the above users. Two glaring shortcomings here : Lack of sharpness and point of interest. I think you lost sharpness when resizing/resampling. My opinion,shots 1-20 and a few in between had nothing going in them and the exposure was off in almost all the shots. I take it that you didn't do much or any post-processing. I'm not a big fan of PP,but if it brings life in an otherwise dull image,then by all means do it. I'm not a pro either,still have a lot to learn. Dont worry,you will get there and everyone learns from their mistakes.

erm yes, no pp done, oso dun really know how to do it either. haha, ok , will learn and hopefully the nx time i post, will have some really good photos to showcase to u guys at CS.

When I click on this post, I almost faint.
But it is ok, this is your first touch of a DSLR. :bsmilie:
The excitement is there to take a lots of pictures and share a lot.

First resize your pictures. Maybe to 640x480.
If the picture is of the same scene and subject, only choose one.
If you find the picture is blur, too bright or too dark, just delete it.
If you shoot 70 pictures, maybe just choose 10 to post.
Posting 70 pictures, most people will just close the page and move to the next thread.
When you look through the viewfinder, think what is your main focus before you press the shutter. Remove as much other distractions as possible.
Good luck and happy shooting.

orh, ok. resize... yea, haha, agree that 70+ pics too much liao, had a hard time loading onto photobucket too.

All in all, i guess composition n sharpness r the main problems, for composition, will try to look at things from diff perspective in future. for sharpnesss, erm thats a technical aspect, prehaps need a few more times to iron things out bah, aft all first time mah. haha, thx guys for the comments, will work on it the nx time i go out and shoot again.

 

[AlteredVision]

Wow, first time i see a thread with so many pics from the same photog. :bsmilie:

Probably the reason nothing really pops out at you is because you were having too much fun snapping with the new camera to really pay attention to other things the others have mentioned. Still, I like #62, and a couple of others are interesting too.

 

[evo-lution]

Bro

ur shots all too blur, if it was me, i would have deleted almost everything away. I am abit particular about soft pictures. Sorry if i am too blunt.

I notice that some of ur pics u are using ISO400 and f5.6 and 1/2s exposure... Are u using a tripod or handheld? I am not very familiar with canon sys, IS means Image Stabilizer? i think for exposure time of 1/2s it's better to use a tripod rather than ur IS (if u are not using 1). When using tripod, u shld switch off IS, at least tis is wat shld be done using nikon sys

for landscape pics since u need a large DOF, u wouldn't use f5.6 try to use f11 or if ur lens allow f16 and ISO 100, 200 at most... unless really really no choice... 1/2 s is abit slow even with IS i feel.

frm ur pics i think most of them are taken with f/5.6 or below right,except the harborfront pic? to compensate for the dim lighting? :think: actually i look thru' all the soft pics and strangely i did not find a single pt of focus, did u manual focus? even with f5.6 there should at least be a pt/part that is sharp. many were like out of focus. is ur lens a bad copy?

Like wat the prev posts said, work with your composition first, think wat u wan to shoot before u put ur eyes into the viewfinder to compose ur shot.

There are many pics posted in the forum u can take them as reference and ask if unsure, the CSers are all pretty friendly...

Anyway good attempt, hope u have fun with ur new gadget/toy and keep shooting to improve...

just my 2 cents...

oh, is that so? tripod muz turn IS off arh? didn't hear that from anywhere before, good discovery, prehaps nx time i try. erm no la, nvr manual focus, but mostly handheld. oh ok, will try to utilise the larger aperture no. , i shoot mostly on quite low aperture no. probably too focused on those blur background effects since i have a 50mm f1.4 on hand. thx for the gd advice anyway

 

[kandinsky]

Agree with most of the opinions stated so far.

If you want people here to look through a whole bunch of shots, and ask if any are good,
a better solution would be to create an album on flickr or photobucket and provide the link to the album, instead of hotlinking every image.

Keep shooting!

Cheers,

 

[ahbian]

Hi, my few cents

1) It is ok to take plenty of shots of the same subject, but it is a good habit to select one best shot among them to post. A photo, however well-taken, will lose its impact if it is presented together with others that look similar to it.

2) Others might disagree with me, but the "blur background effect" you are looking for usually will not work in your type of landscape shots. In this case, maybe you should work on the sharpness and composition first.

3) Keep shooting. Have fun.

 

[gymak90]

Yup I concur with the comments posted earlier.

Most of your pics are not sharp enough. I'm not sure why, probably the AF mode?
White Balance is also an issue.

With those aside, composition is another area to work on. Because most of the pics lack a strong subject and this ends up with like no feeling/mood loh. What I learnt from others, is to always ask yourself if the things around are necessary in your frame?
If not, then try to omit them. If yes then include them in a nice way.

I can see that your photographic arsenal is quite a big investment, haha. So to make it worthwhile, keep on shooting and trying

 

[nigel84]

First and foremost. TS, you should get the focusing right in all your pics. I was really asking myself,where is the focus. I do not know if most of the shots u took were hand-held or tripod. Some of the day shoot reali does show some great potential, however, wrong timing. You know, right place, wrong time. 有缘无份。。。 And i always remember this in my head. F11 or more for buildings. And depends on situation, for landscape i might choose f8 or f11 and higher. Ppl without messy backgrd, i choose f5.6 or 4.5. And if i reali wan a nice bokeh, i would go as low as possible. Which i now currently only have f1.8... I remembered when i first started, i borrowed tons of books from the library and read massively, and when i'm out to practice. I bring out 1 or 2 with me. To try to apply wat i have just picked up. Slow and tedious i know. But take your time.

 

[sunboi80]

The blur effect will be useful if u have something prominent in the foreground, look at some of the labrador park pics here or the numerous CBD day and nightscape pics... However in ur series i think most of the time u are trying to take at infinity focal length (aka very far) thus no pt to use the "blur effect", make everything sharp, usu the case for landscape...
Once u get the hang of it then play around with the blurring effect...

 

[evo-lution]

Agree with most of the opinions stated so far.

If you want people here to look through a whole bunch of shots, and ask if any are good,
a better solution would be to create an album on flickr or photobucket and provide the link to the album, instead of hotlinking every image.

Keep shooting!

Cheers,

ok, thx, will keep that in mind, probably no nx time le la, will jus take prehaps around 10 or 20 of the better ones.

Hi, my few cents

1) It is ok to take plenty of shots of the same subject, but it is a good habit to select one best shot among them to post. A photo, however well-taken, will lose its impact if it is presented together with others that look similar to it.

2) Others might disagree with me, but the "blur background effect" you are looking for usually will not work in your type of landscape shots. In this case, maybe you should work on the sharpness and composition first.

3) Keep shooting. Have fun.

alright, noted, so i guess it still leads down to sharpness n composition. btw, i particularly like the way u explain why we shouldn't post multiple shots of same object.

Yup I concur with the comments posted earlier.

Most of your pics are not sharp enough. I'm not sure why, probably the AF mode?
White Balance is also an issue.

With those aside, composition is another area to work on. Because most of the pics lack a strong subject and this ends up with like no feeling/mood loh. What I learnt from others, is to always ask yourself if the things around are necessary in your frame?
If not, then try to omit them. If yes then include them in a nice way.

I can see that your photographic arsenal is quite a big investment, haha. So to make it worthwhile, keep on shooting and trying

ok, haha, AF mode is indeed smth which i didn't realised n hence didn't adjust. btw, what AF mode do u recommend for landscape shot?

First and foremost. TS, you should get the focusing right in all your pics. I was really asking myself,where is the focus. I do not know if most of the shots u took were hand-held or tripod. Some of the day shoot reali does show some great potential, however, wrong timing. You know, right place, wrong time. 有缘无份。。。 And i always remember this in my head. F11 or more for buildings. And depends on situation, for landscape i might choose f8 or f11 and higher. Ppl without messy backgrd, i choose f5.6 or 4.5. And if i reali wan a nice bokeh, i would go as low as possible. Which i now currently only have f1.8... I remembered when i first started, i borrowed tons of books from the library and read massively, and when i'm out to practice. I bring out 1 or 2 with me. To try to apply wat i have just picked up. Slow and tedious i know. But take your time.

haha, ok, interesting, will bear that in mind too, abt the f stop and right timing although dun really fully understand the right timing thing yet, u mean nice shade of the sky and the clouds pattern and prehaps even the clamness of the water? thx for the wonderful advice though, appreciate it. btw, u say those got that little bit of potential one right, do u mind giving me some examples so prehaps i could try to go in that direction in future?

The blur effect will be useful if u have something prominent in the foreground, look at some of the labrador park pics here or the numerous CBD day and nightscape pics... However in ur series i think most of the time u are trying to take at infinity focal length (aka very far) thus no pt to use the "blur effect", make everything sharp, usu the case for landscape...
Once u get the hang of it then play around with the blurring effect...

oh ok, so to shoot at erm infinity?? should use f/11 and above right? as someone( pardon me, lazy to refer) mentioned to me here? ok will heed ur advice n go look, saw those cbd ones, but not the labrabor ones...

 

[osocan]

Bro

I was the first visitor to your thread. You were on your #2 post and when I read that you have 75 to upload, I told myself to come back again a day later I could sense your excitement in your thread.

I read somewhere that the best time to take pictures is before 10am in the morning and after 3pm in the afternoon. But somehow I have only a handful of opporutnities to really take pictures in those more favourable timings. And then someone suggested that when the light was not so favourable, the shots could be converted to B&W to see if they could be saved...I am still learning anyway...

BTW Grats on your new DSLR

 

[giantcanopy]

btw, i particularly like the way u explain why we shouldn't post multiple shots of same object.

No everyone feels this way. For me i would like to give my better representation of the subject matter in one take and not introduce some other variations that might lead to unnecessary comparisons and erode on the original subject matter, taking a toll on viewer interest. But for the sake of learning and seeking opinions you might benefit from more comparisons.

And i see you r overflowing with enthusiasm :bsmilie:

All the best to ur shooting !

Ryan

 

[Kit]

Composition is not something that can be thought easily and it can be subjective. Looking at the first few shots, the building placement is incoherent and the composition lacks impact or a factor that captures attention. Also, that wasn't the best of ambient lighting you can make use of to enhance your photos.

Then there is the intention. What do you wish to achieve when you take a particular photo? Is another photographer standing next to you that interesting to warrant a photo? You've got to select your shots with discipline and exercise restraint. If not; you end up with another 70 photos, most of which do not work well at all. Instead of taking a whole lot of photos at one outing, slow down and work out your shots. Recce your site and take time to design your photos, then wait for the right light to come along. When you spend more time taking a single shot, your success rate increases. Its the quality that counts, not quantity. If you have 1 or 2 successful shots in a single outing, that's a fruitful outing already. The best way to improve on your compositional skills is to look at what other people had done.

Other thinngs to look out for are the minute details that could well make or break the photos e.g. tilting horizon, perspective distortions, image quality, etc. Information on these aspects can be easily found on the net.

 

[evo-lution]

Bro

I was the first visitor to your thread. You were on your #2 post and when I read that you have 75 to upload, I told myself to come back again a day later I could sense your excitement in your thread.

I read somewhere that the best time to take pictures is before 10am in the morning and after 3pm in the afternoon. But somehow I have only a handful of opporutnities to really take pictures in those more favourable timings. And then someone suggested that when the light was not so favourable, the shots could be converted to B&W to see if they could be saved...I am still learning anyway...

BTW Grats on your new DSLR

haha, thx for being the first to visit. but at that hr? u certainly got tonnes of energy i muz say. lol. anyway thx for coming back and leaving a comment for me to learn from. erm before 10am very hard leh(got commitments like u do) prehaps the aft 3 portion might work better for me. i wanted to do B&W at first cos i thought they were really cool! but yea, i guess i was overwhelmed by enthusiasm that i completely forgotten abt B&W when i got out there. lol.

No everyone feels this way. For me i would like to give my better representation of the subject matter in one take and not introduce some other variations that might lead to unnecessary comparisons and erode on the original subject matter, taking a toll on viewer interest. But for the sake of learning and seeking opinions you might benefit from more comparisons.

And i see you r overflowing with enthusiasm :bsmilie:

All the best to ur shooting !

Ryan

haha, i get what u mean, but i was still trying to check out the diff effects that WB and apperture n shutter speed actually does to my pics. and furthermore, first time, so yea not so confident to jus take a single shot yet. prehaps i will try n do that when i'm confident enuf? thx for the advice bro.

Composition is not something that can be thought easily and it can be subjective. Looking at the first few shots, the building placement is incoherent and the composition lacks impact or a factor that captures attention. Also, that wasn't the best of ambient lighting you can make use of to enhance your photos.

Then there is the intention. What do you wish to achieve when you take a particular photo? Is another photographer standing next to you that interesting to warrant a photo? You've got to select your shots with discipline and exercise restraint. If not; you end up with another 70 photos, most of which do not work well at all. Instead of taking a whole lot of photos at one outing, slow down and work out your shots. Recce your site and take time to design your photos, then wait for the right light to come along. When you spend more time taking a single shot, your success rate increases. Its the quality that counts, not quantity. If you have 1 or 2 successful shots in a single outing, that's a fruitful outing already. The best way to improve on your compositional skills is to look at what other people had done.

Other thinngs to look out for are the minute details that could well make or break the photos e.g. tilting horizon, perspective distortions, image quality, etc. Information on these aspects can be easily found on the net.

hi, erm pardon me, but what does building placement incoherent means? and ambient lighting as well? placement refering to inappopriate subject to shoot at for landscape shots or do they need some major composition work by the photographer? ambient lighting-natural lighting? anyway, pt noted for excercising restraint n take my time to compose my shot properly. btw, that photographer shot is actually to test the effects of the 50mm at f1.4. thx for the great advice anyway, haha a bit harsh but really appreciate it. thx once again.

 

[Kit]

hi, erm pardon me, but what does building placement incoherent means? and ambient lighting as well? placement refering to inappopriate subject to shoot at for landscape shots or do they need some major composition work by the photographer? ambient lighting-natural lighting? anyway, pt noted for excercising restraint n take my time to compose my shot properly. btw, that photographer shot is actually to test the effects of the 50mm at f1.4. thx for the great advice anyway, haha a bit harsh but really appreciate it. thx once again.

The buildings in the background are spaced sparsely, this leads the eye to wander aimlessly all over. The foreground is also not strong enough as an anchor for the photo. There are a lot of elements inthe photo but none really captures attention or gel the composition together. As with all scenes, you can't choose your subjects. They are always there. Like I mentioned earlier, its up to you to design your composition and decide the best spot to take your photos. As such, you are entirely in charge of deciding whether the subject is appropriate or not. If you decide to include the subject, then how can you photograph them best?

Yes, ambient light means natural lighting. Learn to read the light and identify an appropriate time to take your photos. If its a test shot, then you have to decide if you should actually post it for comments without identifying it as a test shot to begin with.

 

[evo-lution]

The buildings in the background are spaced sparsely, this leads the eye to wander aimlessly all over. The foreground is also not strong enough as an anchor for the photo. There are a lot of elements inthe photo but none really captures attention or gel the composition together. As with all scenes, you can't choose your subjects. They are always there. Like I mentioned earlier, its up to you to design your composition and decide the best spot to take your photos. As such, you are entirely in charge of deciding whether the subject is appropriate or not. If you decide to include the subject, then how can you photograph them best?

Yes, ambient light means natural lighting. Learn to read the light and identify an appropriate time to take your photos. If its a test shot, then you have to decide if you should actually post it for comments without identifying it as a test shot to begin with.

oh, ok, so meaning i should prehaps take the pic from a lower angle and prehaps from the sides such that the buildings seems to be more packed and not so much "spacing" all around the diff buildings thus getting a more "wholesome" pic? anyway thx for taking the effort to come back here and reply to my qns. haha, still got alot to learn from u guys=)

 

[espion]

how to comment on 70 pics?!!!!

so i comment on the first few only and only on one point: exposure.

whatever is your subject, make sure it is well exposed.

And well exposed means, the subject is as bright as it can possibly be without sending other important elements in the picture to overexposure/saturation.

Then there is contrast, which means the bright is as bright it can be and the dark is dark as it can be.

In your first post, only the last pic is about OK, if your subject was StanChart bldg, but if it was UOB Tower, then it is slightly under.

OK, if you understand this, then you will have many questions. Please ask.

 

[Simon_84]

oh, is that so? tripod muz turn IS off arh? didn't hear that from anywhere before, good discovery, prehaps nx time i try. erm no la, nvr manual focus, but mostly handheld. oh ok, will try to utilise the larger aperture no. , i shoot mostly on quite low aperture no. probably too focused on those blur background effects since i have a 50mm f1.4 on hand. thx for the gd advice anyway

did u use a pro consumer before?
cos on tripod even compacts with IS be turn off unless your tripod is not really that stable.
when stabilizer on body/lens 1st came out some forums over at dpreview already mention on tripod must switch off.
forgot the reason to as why.

actually i will be a bit put off from buying 450d since the output straight from the cam is a bit soft.
you could have adjust your image parameters to +1.
some users in the dpreview used to say canon entry lvl cams like their semi-pro big brothers have soft pics right out of the cam so have to use ps to sharpen the image.

 

[dennisc]

Pics a little dull. 50mm f1.4 makes a gorgeous portrait lens, gorgeous boken but when used for landscape, it's prone to flaring and its too narrow. Not my choice for shooting landscapes but you'd be able to make choices on whats best for your style once you've shot enough. Nice work keep shooting!

 

[jbma]

Too many photos on your thread. You should select a few and post only those you think are worthy. You need to work on your focussing and also composition.