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View Full Version : Constructive Criticism Please ^.^



ex1z7
10-25-2006, 02:03 AM
After seeing some amazing shots posted here, I decided it might be a good place to share some of my work .. I'm very VERY fresh out of the proverbial photography womb, and am learning everytime I pick up my camera.. I took 10 shots I liked, out of my most recent 300 I've saved, from 400 I took during 4 seperate outtings I went on.

Ohhh be gentle with me.

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/5791/rival1camarovr3.jpg

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/3630/rival2integrabj7.jpg

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/4107/rival3camarozn9.jpg

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/983/rival4mazdabqw6.jpg

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/3560/rival5groupat8.jpg

ex1z7
10-25-2006, 02:07 AM
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/3521/rival6integrarsxpq2.jpg

http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/7751/rival7rsxkf5.jpg

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/7773/rival8integrasjw1.jpg

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/7909/rival9integraml2.jpg

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/858/rival10focusys5.jpg

Yeah.. Fuji A345 4.1mp.. Nikon D50 will be my next move I've decided.

Ben
10-25-2006, 02:36 AM
Great shots overall. Some of the angles I find to be a little too out there, but leaving your cameras limitations out of it, definatly workings for a good future!

ex1z7
10-25-2006, 02:42 AM
Woah man ... Thank you SO much ! The handful of people who hang out in the photographers corner are so incredibly talented and I have so much respect for all of you guys... That really means alot to me coming from someone of your calibre !

And I'm really trying to find my own style of shooting, I have alot of idea's I'd love to try but I'm just waiting on subject matter - I have a few places picked out around town I'm going to go shoot at to see if I can work on my angles and such better..

Wow.. Thank you again

[edit] I figured I'd add a few more of those group shots at different angles I was talking about, and a few other random shots..

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9781/rival11focusci8.jpg

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/4084/rival12rsxkq3.jpg

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/5156/rival13camarokm0.jpg

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/3871/rival14groupel8.jpg

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/3479/rival15groupmg7.jpg

mo_money2supe
10-25-2006, 03:30 AM
I quite enjoy the different perspectives you took for each picture, especially the 2nd one with the blue dc2. The lighting on the other hand, I am not as fond of. I'm quite new into photography myself, but it seems as though you may have over exposed some of them, thus creating the glaring effect with the lights. Try speeding up the shutter just a tad, and play around with your white balance too. Nonetheless, great job on the shoots! Oh, and although you're not from around the Calgary area, in case the owners of the cars are worried about privacy (as was the case with one of the owners of the cars that was formerly in my sig pic), you may want to edit out the plates.

Melinda
10-25-2006, 07:14 AM
Overall not too bad. Just one comment that kind of stands out to me. In the last photo of your first post, the one with all the cars lined up, the dead space behind the cars isn't doing much for me. In the general rules of composition, if something is pointing in one direction (cars, fingers, people looking a certain direction, etc) then you need to allow some space in front of it so that the person looking at the photo has somewhere for their eye to follow. So they can follow a gaze a little while and it seems real, or get an idea of where that car might be driving. If you switched that dead space from the back to the front, it would be a great shot. I noticed in your sig you've cropped off the dead space, that works a lot better.

Other then that, pretty good work. Keep practicing and you'll do well.

soupey
10-25-2006, 07:31 AM
Originally posted by Melinda
Overall not too bad. Just one comment that kind of stands out to me. In the last photo of your first post, the one with all the cars lined up, the dead space behind the cars isn't doing much for me. In the general rules of composition, if something is pointing in one direction (cars, fingers, people looking a certain direction, etc) then you need to allow some space in front of it so that the person looking at the photo has somewhere for their eye to follow. So they can follow a gaze a little while and it seems real, or get an idea of where that car might be driving. If you switched that dead space from the back to the front, it would be a great shot. I noticed in your sig you've cropped off the dead space, that works a lot better.

Other then that, pretty good work. Keep practicing and you'll do well.

thats EXACTLY what noticed too...it looks kinda weird seeing a bunch of garble before u see the shiny cars...
FIRST POST:
first pic: i think its pretty good, but again its from a common angle and doesnt really have anything interesting because of that...but it shows u know how to use a tripod!, haha

second pic: looks a LOT better, i like the way u got ur own angle going for it...also like the way its off centered and the car fits into that corner of the picture

the rest of the pics: these all kinda look like snapshots, the last picture of the post looks good asides from the comments from melinda...

SECOND POST:
first pic: if u have control over what ur taking the picture of, try to make sure the wheels are straight on any cars that are flat with the picture, that beige car would look a lot better if its wheels were straight.

second pic: again ur not totally dead center with this picture, with pics that u plan on taking centered, MAKE SURE ur actually centered when u take the pic (or crop it to fix it later)....also, u might want to try an angle that cuts out the garbage thats stuck in his radiator...

third pic: again a LITTLE off center, not sure if thats what u were going for tho, it may have looked better from a different angle to make it look like the cars were going somewhere, (by showing a bit more of the road thats ahead of the cars), but overall looks good

fourth pic: looks awesome, you could always play around with the angle on a pic like that, just adjust it so u can get a lil bit of a different peek at the car through each angle and see which one reveals the most while taking away the least...

fifth pic: a little too dark...i'd say change the curve so u either cut out all the fuzz to complete darkness or so that u can see more details in the pictures, might just be the lcd im looking at it with, but it looks a bit too dull in that pic

overall looks very good for a first batch of pictures, with cars its always fun to try different angles that either give the car a mean agressive dominating look (usually lower looking upwards towards the car), or a secret hidden look (by taking pictures further away, hidden behind things, or from a higher POV) u seem to have a lil bit of both in ur pictures, but again, looks great so far:thumbsup:

ex1z7
10-25-2006, 09:08 AM
Originally posted by mo_money2supe
<*snip*> but it seems as though you may have over exposed some of them, thus creating the glaring effect with the lights. Try speeding up the shutter just a tad, and play around with your white balance too. Nonetheless, great job on the shoots!

I'm not really allowed to do that :| I can only adjust the EV of my camera from -.9 to +1.5 or something and it doesn't do alot in terms of difference it seems, unless it was at 1+ the pictures wouldn't come out in that location :*(.. I also can't adjust the shutter, and my white balance has 4 modes, I chose auto as the other modes weren't working out.. My camera is awfully limited =).


Originally posted by Melinda
<*snip*> In the general rules of composition, if something is pointing in one direction (cars, fingers, people looking a certain direction, etc) then you need to allow some space in front of it so that the person looking at the photo has somewhere for their eye to follow. <*snip*>

Other then that, pretty good work. Keep practicing and you'll do well.

I don't really understand /anything/ about composition, and I took multiple shots and angles of those cars lined up - I should try showing a few of the others to see what you mean by you poking at my examples. =). Theres 2 high POV pictures of those cars where I rested the camera on a rafter.. I couldn't see the view finder.. I just kinda winged it - but I was really happy with how it came out, where you see all the rafter and the back and such - I wanted it to be interesting to the point you wouldn't really see something like that unless you were like.. a bug.. But I do agree, there seems to be too much dead space - the other pictures are more geared towards what you mean.. lower angles and further away with more ground.


Originally posted by soupey


<*snip*>...but it shows u know how to use a tripod!, haha

second pic: looks a LOT better, i like the way u got ur own angle going for it...<*snip*>

SECOND POST:
first pic: if u have control over what ur taking the picture of, try to make sure the wheels are straight on any cars that are flat with the picture, that beige car would look a lot better if its wheels were straight.

second pic: again ur not totally dead center with this picture, with pics that u plan on taking centered, MAKE SURE ur actually centered when u take the pic (or crop it to fix it later)....also, u might want to try an angle that cuts out the garbage thats stuck in his radiator...

third pic: again a LITTLE off center, not sure if thats what u were going for tho, it may have looked better from a different angle to make it look like the cars were going somewhere, (by showing a bit more of the road thats ahead of the cars), but overall looks good

fourth pic: looks awesome, you could always play around with the angle on a pic like that, just adjust it so u can get a lil bit of a different peek at the car through each angle and see which one reveals the most while taking away the least...

fifth pic: a little too dark...i'd say change the curve so u either cut out all the fuzz to complete darkness or so that u can see more details in the pictures, might just be the lcd im looking at it with, but it looks a bit too dull in that pic

overall looks very good for a first batch of pictures, with cars its always fun to try different angles that either give the car a mean agressive dominating look (usually lower looking upwards towards the car), or a secret hidden look (by taking pictures further away, hidden behind things, or from a higher POV) u seem to have a lil bit of both in ur pictures, but again, looks great so far:thumbsup:

Haha I didn't use a tripod on any of those shots, the only tripod picture was the 10th picture of my Focus.. :) I placed my camera on little boxes I found in the parking garage or on those barriers, or anything else I could find..

In hindsight I should have turned that wheel, I was only getting one or two shots at that angle (also in hindsight..take lots of pictures of each angle..) so I didn't bother, but it would have looked much better being straight. <tip!>

I have a little cross in my viewfinder, and a little cube in my lcd display, neither help me too much with centering, I also didn't want to center any of the pictures - some came out centered but that wasn't my intention..

And in regards to the black and white photo, it had so much noise that I made it black and white and I did try and adjust the curve in photoshop, it came out looking plastic and fake so I left it after touching up how dark it was.. Overall just a shoddy picture, but I liked the angle/idea I had for it..



Thank you all for your kind words, none of that was harsh which inflated my ego so much =). I'm constantly learning, and I'm really interested in getting better everytime I pick up my camera, I don't know everything, near..anything about how things work - but I've learned alot lately from reading around here and following the links people post - by the time I purchase a new camera I should have a better idea how to shoot better, and then I'll have another critism thread =).

I want to go run out and practice right now ! Curse it being -10 here..

streetarab
10-25-2006, 09:17 AM
the only real problems i saw compo wise are the first pic, as mentioned, and the dead space pic, in your sig you cropped that pic and it looks pretty good, but in the full version, it confuses a persons eyes, its hard to follow

i really like the back of the two tegs, nice pic (2nd post, 3rd pic)

sputnik
10-25-2006, 09:37 AM
The image you are using as your sig has a number of the cars out of focus. Perhaps get a tripod and try shooting it with a higher f-stop for a longer exposure for greater depth of field.

You might want to work on your composition a bit as well. I find that there is way too much pavement in many of the shots. You might also want to choose your locations better. On a few of them the lighting is blown out because you have not enough lighting to illuminate but when you try to compensate the a longer exposure you might as well be shooting directly into the sun. Try finding locations and positions where you arent shooting directly into a lightbulb.

zieg
10-25-2006, 09:51 AM
They look great, nice job.

#1 looks good. And it's a thirdgen Fbody, so I like. :) But the lighting above is a little distracting, maybe you can tone it down a bit?


#5 looks like it should be more centered. I cant tell if it was intentional or not, but I'd go with no? Oh and same as above for the lights.

I like the lighting in the second last pic, but the last 2 overall, I'm not feeling. The subject is the car so dont hide it too much. The second last one isnt bad, but the last one looks like you were just taking a pic of the beams and there happened to be a car there.

ex1z7
10-25-2006, 10:10 AM
Originally posted by ZiG-87
They look great, nice job.

#1 looks good. And it's a thirdgen Fbody, so I like. :) But the lighting above is a little distracting, maybe you can tone it down a bit?


#5 looks like it should be more centered. I cant tell if it was intentional or not, but I'd go with no? Oh and same as above for the lights.

I like the lighting in the second last pic, but the last 2 overall, I'm not feeling. The subject is the car so dont hide it too much. The second last one isnt bad, but the last one looks like you were just taking a pic of the beams and there happened to be a car there.

Thanks dude, the last 2 .. I wanted to cover the Focus with that beam so it did actually look like there was my car sitting there while I took pictures of the beams.. I wanted to sort've be slick, I had such a hard time getting a decent angle where that was taken where I wasn't looking straight into a light bulb beside me ..

And I wanted it to look pretty much the same with the Integra, I wanted it to make it look like I wasn't trying to focus on the car itself, trying to be interesting =).

And I'm not big on centering TBH, but I think I may have to give it a shot as everyone seems surprised that they aren't.. I'll see how that goes the next time I'm out.

RC-Cola
10-25-2006, 02:35 PM
The thing that I noticed in some of your pics is that you have many distracting elements, i.e. signs, pylons, other cars etc that take away from teh "hero" of the shot.

It's ok to have other elements in you photos, but they should compliment the "hero" or subject of the photo. For example a nice looking lady in a bikini on the hood of the car...

I agree with some of the other comments about loose spacing and the lighting, those are elements that you will learn over time.