Mild Photography

[MagpieRacer]

Hey all! So, Im not a photographer but I do enjoy taking shots and I thought it was about time I shared some with you guys. I dont have a flashy camera its just an Olympus digital camera, 12mp, not sure on the lens but its only a digi cam so its not interchangable anyway! Enjoy!

First up is some HDR attempts, these are from my first few attempts at doing it. Feedback appreciated.

this is my personal fave.

Also, see if you can guess what car the first photo is from.

More to come, stay tuned.

 

[Ibonibo]

For first attempts, the HDR shots are good.

You need to look out for the grain though (sky and the forest one)

But that is normal when starting with HDR, I also overdid it. As it's new for you (or for anyone starting it), you generally overdo HDR shots, so they look more surreal, artistic.

I got shot down here for that. But no worries.

I also learned that for doing HDR shots a good calibrated screen is more than important.

You can check my HDR shots here : https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=194388

 

[MagpieRacer]

Thanks for the tips Your shots are very nice! I did some more today before I saw your post so have not been able to put your advice into action just yet but as long as the weather stays dry I will certainly experiment with lower iso and such to get less grain. And when you say calibrated screen, how do you mean?

Shots of today, will post some more tomorrow. To lazy to upload them all tonight.

 

[McLaren]

I'm diggin' that Lotus shot. 👍👍

 

[Rue]

Hi there! Thanks for sharing your photos with us. Don't fret about not having a flashy camera, having all the bells and whistles doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get good photos by any stretch. In fact, I think starting out with a basic camera is probably the best option. With limited options you'll generally find out through trial and error (and a few tips from the pros) that simplicity is often the key to a great photograph. This brings me on to HDR technique. I'll just say straight up that I am not a fan of the process, although there are the odd examples that work. In fact I think the more photographs are person takes, the further they get away from highly post-pro'd photos. I like the composition of quite a few of your photos, but I don't feel faux-HDR does anything for them. I'd love to see a couple of them in black and white, especially the warehouse, beach and tunnel ones. The composition on these is really good and I think they'd be far more dramatic in monochrome. What do you reckon? Sometimes it's tempting to bring out the colours in a picture when they don' actually do anything for the scene. The old less is more quote is apt. Anyway, those are my two-cents. Looking forward to seeing more!

 

[Azuremen]

Stay away from spot coloring... it is somewhat cliche and often doesn't add much to an image I feel.

And for HDR, which I do play around with, don't get into it till you are comfortable with the shots you are taking out of the camera normally. Also don't do HDR from single exposures, especially from JPG files, as the artifacting and processing will be quite clear. Here some examples of my HDR, and an excellent HDR photographer is Beau.

Having a fancy pants dSLR isn't required to produce excellent shots, and is often overwhelming to a novice.

 

[homeforsummer]

And for HDR, which I do play around with, don't get into it till you are comfortable with the shots you are taking out of the camera normally.

Was just about to say that myself.

There are some good shots above but some need work on composition, which is much more important to good photography than doing some HDR stuff in post-processing.

I'd use the two tunnel-style shots above as an example.

The first one, looking out to the pier, cuts off the top of the right-hand leg nearest the camera and leaves just a sliver of sky on the left-hand leg, which makes them look a bit like they weren't meant to be in the shot.

On both the pier shot and the tunnel shot, you're also standing slightly off-centre - slightly to the right of the lights in the tunnel and slightly to the left of centre compared to the pier. Little things that you might miss when composing the image but matter to the person viewing it afterwards. This isn't a criticism of you specifically - I've done it myself before and once you notice it you make damn sure you get it right next time!

With your favourite shot, the childrens' park, I'd personally have swung to the right a little so there isn't the sliver of fence and houses behind on the far left of the shot, and you'd have caught the whole roundabout too which sits half out of shot. Then there's stuff like your camera bag being visible in the garden shot, which looks very out of place

Don't take these as harsh criticisms, just things to look out for next time

As others have said, the Lotus shot is probably best of the bunch 👍

 

[MagpieRacer]

Thanks for the input and feedback guys! Certainly a lot of advice to take forwards into the future. Much Appreciated! In the meantime, here is a small one I snapped the other day whilst out with a few pals.

 

[Rue]

It's great to see someone responding positively to points such as the above. Websites like Flickr, with all the shameless self-promotion in leaving comments and awards on photos, means people rarely respond well to anything other than vacuous comments such as 'Awesome!', 'Great capture!', 'Nice shot!' - I can't stand that nonsense. If you have nothing constructive to say, why bother leaving a message? Anyway, I like the above shot. The path and fence lead your eyes into the photo, falling on the main subject, your mates. Then a second later we're drawn to the cliffs in the background and then the detail like the house nestled in the dip down there. It looks like a cold and stormy day, I wonder if taking the exposure down a few stops might enhance this feeling, giving a bit more contrast between the dark clouds and white cliffs? My first reaction was also that it might benefit from a tighter crop closer to your mates. Dimensions more like a letterbox. Just throwing some ideas out there... Looking forward to seeing more pics.

Is this Dover, by the way? The scenery is stunning.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Thanks for the comment! It was a very bleak day in terms of weather, we just about got back to the car before it started raining real hard. This was also taken at around 8pm, still just about light enough to take shots but the cloud cover made it seem darker.

Its not Dover no, but not far off, Dovers another 30-40 miles up the coast from there. The shot is looking towards the "Seven Sisters" near Seaford.

 

[Prosthetic]

Love that first shot of old destroyed pier.👍 Very ominous, seems like a great setting for a horror film. Also I want to note that when quickly glancing at the thread title, I see "Mild Pornography".