Another first pics thread

[Hyena]

Yeah my turn to post a "my first pics thread"

Feel free to rip me to shreds

One main question, do these look a little under exposed ? (mainly the first 2)
As per one of my other threads, the metering on my camera seems to be out of whack and it has intermittent BGLOD symptoms but until I get it fixed I've been playing with the settings manually to try and get a decent picture. In aperture priority mode it seems to be way too under exposed so I flicked to manual and dropped the shutter speed down but I'm still getting used to the camera, and how much faith I should put in the small image on the LCD and the histogram.

Anyway here's a few pics I took in the national park across the road from my house today:
(post processing is minimal, a little sharpening and increase in saturation)









This last one is probably a little uninteresting but it looked good at the time and I snapped dozens of shots trying to get the water drip just as it hit the surface.

[Manta]

Nice first efforts Hyena!

Exposure seems okay on 1 and 3 but 2 and 4 are pretty dark and murky. Easily fixed if you shot in RAW.

Might have been better to close up a bit on that drip, if you had enough dry land to do so. As it is, your subject is lost against all the dull stuff.

[Justin]

Hi,

I found on aperture priority the same thing - I felt the shots were 'underexposed'. This is the camera trying to preserve the highlights.

Good use of DOF in all of these. The first is the best composition

Try this trick in PS if you have it - go into the 'curves' box and drag the bottom left horizontally about one box and top right horizontally about one box - this has the effect of lightening the lights and darkening the darks, so to speak!

Also, just run an auto levels/color/contrast should make them pop out a bit more!

Edit: Picasa2 also has some great tuning features - 'I'm feeling lucky' will automatically enhance an average photo

[Manta]

Try this trick in PS if you have it - go into the 'curves' box and drag the bottom left horizontally about one box and top right horizontally about one box

Try the same in LAB colour, dragging in the points in both the A and B channels. Does great things for your colours but don't go overboard with it!

[Justin]

Manta - correct! I knew there was a step I was forgetting!

[Hyena]

Might have been better to close up a bit on that drip, if you had enough dry land to do so.

Yeah I was at the limit of dry land and the kit lens zoom on that one. Light and dark issues aside I don't think I captured the scene very well, it looked much better at the time with the sunny reflection of the water drips on the top ledge of the sandstone. Oh well, it was good hand-eye-shutter co-ordination practise

I haven't started playing around with photoshop yet, I'm still using an older program I'm used to (ulead photoimpact) but I'll start getting my head around the different features of PS shortly.

Justin, it's good to know that the shots often appear underexposed in aperture priority mode and it's not just me or the way I'm going about things

[the foto fanatic]

Hello Jay
I think the first three images are very good, but I agree with Manta on the last one.

Exposure seems OK - maybe #2 is a tad flat (ie needs more contrast).

You have some good colours, shapes and textures happening. Well done.

[Willy wombat]

Good first efforts. I do like a good botanical. Natives to boot!

I love the concept of the last shot but tricky to capture and correctly expose all the elements.