St Andrew's after the storm

[earthen247]

Took this pic of St Andrew's Cathedral after a shower on Saturday afternoon. Was trying to create a moody gothic atmosphere.

Got some feedback that it's got no obvious focus, too many distractions like the cars and the bright orange safety cone. Also tried to edit to bring out the greenery a little more, wondering if the colours in the shot can be improved further.

Photo data
Focal Length 10.0mm
Lens: Sigma 10-20mm
Auto White Balance
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO Speed : 100

Thanks for comments!

 

[flipfreak]

the tree and the building at the back killed it for me.

 

[waileong]

Well and truly distorted. Not to mention that there's no gothic feel. The only feel I get is this building is going to topple over.

 

[knpan]

looks like a normal everyday picture to me, what i can do is, shoot the building when there is direct sunlight only, so as to have even light between building and vivd blue sky.

 

[Kit]

Well your subject took up a good portion of the image so I wouldn't say this has no focus. I do find it disconcerting that little thought is spent on designing the composition. You need to know how to control a wide angle lenses. Scrutinise the scene and decide what's to be included and what's not. If you want through that train of thought, you will eliminate those distractions.

A distorted view is not a bad thing as with this case because it actually present the building in a more dynamic perspective. Given the site constraints and equipment, it might not even be possible for you to correct the tilt..... maybe in photoshop. I would actually go closer to get an even more dynamic perspective and getting rid of the distractions on the road and background altogether. Probably underexpose a little to salvage some cloud details.

 

[earthen247]

the tree and the building at the back killed it for me.

You're referring to Raffles City at the back? True, but I also wanted to capture other elements in the building. The tree was meant to act as a frame, guess it didn't work for you.

Thanks for the feedback though.

 

[earthen247]

Well your subject took up a good portion of the image so I wouldn't say this has no focus. I do find it disconcerting that little thought is spent on designing the composition. You need to know how to control a wide angle lenses. Scrutinise the scene and decide what's to be included and what's not. If you want through that train of thought, you will eliminate those distractions.

A distorted view is not a bad thing as with this case because it actually present the building in a more dynamic perspective. Given the site constraints and equipment, it might not even be possible for you to correct the tilt..... maybe in photoshop. I would actually go closer to get an even more dynamic perspective and getting rid of the distractions on the road and background altogether. Probably underexpose a little to salvage some cloud details.

Thanks Kit, your comments are much appreciated. Shall work to improve the next round.

 

[flipfreak]

You're referring to Raffles City at the back? True, but I also wanted to capture other elements in the building. The tree was meant to act as a frame, guess it didn't work for you.

Thanks for the feedback though.

nah. your framing with the tree didn't work. you need alot more trees if you want to try framing.

 

[earthen247]

nah. your framing with the tree didn't work. you need alot more trees if you want to try framing.

Ah...ok! So there should be another framing device on the left too?

 

[blomqvist]

the picture is dull and not look alive. i think you should try bigger aperture f/1.4 or f/1.8.
It should give you better depth of field. By having shallow depth of field the picture may look alive.

 

[flipfreak]

Ah...ok! So there should be another framing device on the left too?

if u wanted to do framing, do get more greens to do it.

 

[earthen247]

the picture is dull and not look alive. i think you should try bigger aperture f/1.4 or f/1.8.
It should give you better depth of field. By having shallow depth of field the picture may look alive.

My wide angle only goes to f/4 so had to work under those constraints too. :dunno:

 

[Kit]

My wide angle only goes to f/4 so had to work under those constraints too. :dunno:

That was a misleading comment.

With a wide angle lens and the building at a distance away from you, bigger aperture will not give you a much shallower DOF that will have significant impact on the image.

 

[eikin]

That was a misleading comment.

With a wide angle lens and the building at a distance away from you, bigger aperture will not give you a much shallower DOF that will have significant impact on the image.

indeed it was a misleading comment.

the picture is dull and not look alive. i think you should try bigger aperture f/1.4 or f/1.8.
It should give you better depth of field. By having shallow depth of field the picture may look alive.

blomqvist, please be advised that comments in Critique Corner are supposed to help others instead of mislead others.

thanks.

 

[night86mare]

the picture is dull and not look alive. i think you should try bigger aperture f/1.4 or f/1.8.
It should give you better depth of field. By having shallow depth of field the picture may look alive.

find me a 10-20 with f/1.4 or f/1.8 and i will give you my kingdom.

i do not understand where you are coming from.. most wide scenes.. work better with good depth of field rather than shallow.

in any case, with regards to ts' picture.. st andrew's is very, very, very hard to capture in entirety nicely. i have circled it a number of times, inside, outside the gate.. even with the sigma 10-20.. very, very hard to frame without distractions, etc.. because of the huge amount of trees around the place. it would be better to do close-up detail.. or not capture it entirely, like so: link

even then i had to do significant cloning, if you look closely you should be able to spot it.. top left corner area.

 

[earthen247]

find me a 10-20 with f/1.4 or f/1.8 and i will give you my kingdom.

i do not understand where you are coming from.. most wide scenes.. work better with good depth of field rather than shallow.

in any case, with regards to ts' picture.. st andrew's is very, very, very hard to capture in entirety nicely. i have circled it a number of times, inside, outside the gate.. even with the sigma 10-20.. very, very hard to frame without distractions, etc.. because of the huge amount of trees around the place. it would be better to do close-up detail.. or not capture it entirely, like so: link

even then i had to do significant cloning, if you look closely you should be able to spot it.. top left corner area.

Haha, yeah, I'd give my kingdom too.

Nice shot, took a few from that angle too but for mine the contrast with the sky was too low, can't really make out the shape of the building, it looks as if it's merging with the heavens.

Thanks for all the comments to date everyone, very grateful.

 

[JamesW]

Overall, I feel it is a good effort. However, here's a few things you can probably improve on.

Highlights are all burnt out.

A tripod and either a polarizing or ND filter would probably be better. The tree framing does not work for me as well.

Cone on left is distracting. Overall, positioning could be better by taking a step or two left and moving nearer to the church would have help. Cropping the cars on the bottom right would be a good idea.

The gothic effect would probably be better achieved as a B&W or HDR (I have not tried HDR but I've seen HDR with similar composition).

 

[lastboltnut]

I agreed with Kit that the perspective is nice for this composition, not necessary to correct it. For the tree framing, I won't allow the tree to cover the canopy of the church, the Cross is up there.

Underexpose abit like Kit said to get more detail from he clouds then PP. But since its taken, the only damage control now is to do some tone mapping to bring back some details from the clouds, get back some blue colour to the sky by PP, crop away the cars and if you are ambitious, clone away the Raffles City.Ü

Just my opinion for your considerations.

 

[Redsun]

I find that this place is not easy to shoot too
Have to walk around a bit to find some nice angles.
Even so,its hard to fit the entire place into the frame
best way is to shoot parts of it like what night86mare
i had to go all the way outside to shoot this

 

[earthen247]

Overall, I feel it is a good effort. However, here's a few things you can probably improve on.

Highlights are all burnt out.

A tripod and either a polarizing or ND filter would probably be better. The tree framing does not work for me as well.

Cone on left is distracting. Overall, positioning could be better by taking a step or two left and moving nearer to the church would have help. Cropping the cars on the bottom right would be a good idea.

The gothic effect would probably be better achieved as a B&W or HDR (I have not tried HDR but I've seen HDR with similar composition).

Actually, I had just walked over from Funan where I tried to buy a polarizing filter from J3:16 but they said they good one was out of stock. And I agree about the cones and the cars, should have thought of moving the cone away.