Marvin's first pictures

[Marvin]

OK guys (deep breath). Here are some images I took last night and last week. They have no pp at all (mostly as I don't really know how to do it properly!). I am very nervous about this but I would really appreciate some feedback (with instructions if possible). I know you'll be gentle with me (but be honest)!
Marvin
http://www.pixspot.com/index.php?cat=10042

[christiand]

You are doing well.

No need to be shy, I'm not an expert and your shots remind me of how I can improve.
If I may say so, photography like any other skill is a bit like martial arts.
I am incredibly lucky to have a teacher (Wing Chun) who is like us.
We are all in the same boat and we are learning from each other.

regards
CD

[johndec]

Marvin,
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm pretty sure that most people would have been pleased with themselves if they had taken those pics. The NZ shots are great. NZ3 may be a little underexposed, but that easily fixed in PS.

[Matt. K]

Thanks for posting! You have a good eye for landscapes! Believe me that is not something that is easy to do! I suspect that as your knowledge and skills grow you are going to create some fine art landscapes and I know we are all looking foreward to seeing more of them. Keep shooting and keep posting!

[Greg B]

Hey Marvin, they are good. No worries at all.

More specifically, I think the first one is a little bit flat, but Lake Te Anau is a beauty. I don't think it is too much in the middle, it works very well. Your landscapes are good.

With PP, I don't know what to do either, but invariably a little bit of sharpening, and a tweak on the contrast will give any shot more zing.

Your shots of the possum are good too, the first one in particular.

With the third one, making the little guy on the right stand out more will be tricky, but if you were to crop right up to the left of the main one, the other guy would be more involved.

Thanks for sharing.

[JordanP]

OK guys (deep breath). Here are some images I took last night and last week. They have no pp at all (mostly as I don't really know how to do it properly!). I am very nervous about this but I would really appreciate some feedback (with instructions if possible). I know you'll be gentle with me (but be honest)!
Marvin
http://www.pixspot.com/index.php?cat=10042

Personally Marvin I think you have some great images there and see no reason for you to be nervous. Considering there is no post processing on the images you have done very well. IMHO you show good use of polarising filters and have quite a good eye for composition.

Your shot of Lake Te Anau where you have mentioned an need for croping demonstrates this. I though a little of the foreground and the right would enhance the image a bit - almost having the first post near the bottom right corner.

The possum shots are nice and sharpe, and as you mentioned the one with the other little fella sticking his head in is almost a corker - if only it was framed a little different - but working with wild animals - you have done well. Out of curiosity what lens and flash were you using for these shots?

Post processing will of course help a little - I found some of the images a tad dark. To get the little fellow that stuck his head into the shot through post processing ...... I'd have to defer to a more skilled PP'er - He camoflages so well all I would try is sofening the background a little while leaving him sharpe - see if that helped.

To sum up .... post some more! I enjoyed looking at them

Cheers,

[fozzie]

Marvin,

Well done.

Keep up the good work.

The good thing about digital photography, if you do no like a shot, delete it. Therefore, no cost of priniting something you don't like.
And we only gain experience through our mistakes, and understand why something went wrong, and try not to do it again.


Cheers,
Leighton (aka),

[Killakoala]

Well done Marvin.

Hopefully your 'first pic post' nerves are over and we can look forward to many more to come

I love the NZ landscapes. Such a great place to shoot.

Keep 'em coming...

[Vicareyus]

Marvin, you have some really well composed shots here (love Lake Te Anau). The possum shot #1 I like also. Bit of basic pp would make them even better.
Vic

[dooda]

These are quite good shots. Be proud.

When I PP a shot (and I still don't think I know what the hell I'm doing) I'm looking for any bright spots that detract from the lines.

You have, for the most part placed leading lines quite well in the photograph.

My goal on the fantastic Lake Te Anau would be to try and isolate and emphasize the posts. Take advantage of the shadows on the hills in the background (create a little contrast) as well as with the sky (darken perhaps a tad) and then make sure that you get rid of all of the little ripples in the water so that it is a perfectly still mirror .

I can't tell you how to do it though, just what I would be setting out to do.

What luck you had that the little rodent was munching on something red. Did you plant it there for the photo? A little splash of red really makes the photo!

[Marvin]

Wow - thanks guys. You are right - it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be and I don't think it will be too hard to post some more.
Jordanp, I used a Tamron 28-300 and the SB-800 for the possum shots. I bounced the flash off of the top of the cave. I used the kit lens for the rest.
Dooda, I sort of gave the possums the red fruit. My daughters were there feeding the possums little plums and other fruit we had cut up. They are quite tame and come down to take things out of your hand. The kids loved every minute of it! The cave was actually pitch black and we had torches to see by so it was a bit hard to compose the pictures when the kids kept running off with the torches! That SB800 red focus thing (not sure of the correct name!) worked wonders.
Thanks again everyone. I really appreciate you taking the time to look and respond.
Marvin

[stubbsy]

Marvin

First off congratulations on overcoming your worry about posting your images.

I largely agree with what's already been said so won't waste bandwidth by reiterating.

Once thing though is the possum photo with the little guy at the side. You mention he's a little hard to see. This can be fixed in Photoshop using the dodge tool. I've taking the liberty of modifying and reuploading your image in my pixspot gallery. If you don't want it there I'll be happy to remove it.

See below (I also darkened the background, and made a few other tweaks, but this should give you an idea of what can be achieved in Post Processing):

[Marvin]

Cool Stubbsy - thanks! You can really see him now. Did you just do that with the dodge tool? I can see the differences in the background and the colours look a bit darker. I like it and don't mind at all you putting the edit in your gallery. I'm appreciated you spending some time on it. I am going to try the dodge tool tomorrow myself.
Marvin

[MattC]

Gidday Marvin,

I enjoyed your gallery. You are doing very well.

When it comes to post processing, I do not think that there are any hard and fast rules. Do what looks good to you. If you only want to play with contrast and saturation that is fine if you are satisfied with the results. Images from the D70 can sometimes benefit from a little work with tone curves - I use Curve Surgery Pro (NEF) or Curve Therapy (jpeg) for this. Here is a link to an article on sharpening. I like this article because it keeps it simple. http://www.bythom.com/sharpening.htm

If you are going to crop the lake shot I would take a little of the right and top of the image.
With the possum shot, I would be trying to pull both possums in close by cropping.Jordan suggested softening the background to get the possums to stand out against the background, this would probably work quite well. One of the easiest ways to do this is make these adjustments, is to use layers and the various eraser tools. Simply duplicate the layer and erase the parts of the layer that you do not want to apply the changes to. The magic eraser is very useful, by utilising the threshold value in the information bar you can get control over the tone range that is erased. Explore the various effects of brightness, contrast, saturation and filters (lens blur is a good one) on this layer until you find something that you like. The ability to adjust the opacity of the layer in the layers palette is a useful and powerful tool if the intensity of the adjustments is a little too strong for your tastes. A few small contrast and/or brightness adjustments to the possums in the original layer can make them really pop. When satisfied, crop and sharpen. I gave it a quick crop and did not mind the shot at all. Cropping for 10x8 or 5x4 might be the go.
This one of many methods that can be used to acheive the same thing. I think that the trick is to keep your changes small.

I have made one assumption here. That is that you use a flavour of Photoshop.

Cheers

Matt

[stubbsy]

Marvin

Did you just do that with the dodge tool?

Here's what I did:

- used the dodge tool to lighten up the little guy
- used the burn tool to darken ALL of the background around him and the other possum.
- used Filter/Sharpen edges
- adjusted the colour balance slightly to take out some of the yellow
- used the colour replace tool to darken the berry held by the big possum so it didn't grab the eye as much
- did a small crop so the big possum was off centre to the left

This was done on your downsampled image from the web. Result would be MUCH better if you try it on your original.

If anything is unclear, get back to me.

Cheers

[Marvin]

Hi Matt & Stubbsy,
Thanks for your excellent information. I do have PS CS but I haven't really gotten into using it. I am very excited to go away and have a play with it tomorrow. I have never used layers or the dodge tool but will have a go. I guess you learn by experimentation and advice!
Thanks also for the great link.
I am so glad I posted pics - I have heaps to try out. Thanks so much guys!
Marvin

[lukeo]

Hello,

My two cents worth, if you have yourself photoshop, Open the image (if its NEF you'll need the plugin google for it make sure you get the 16 bit one not the 8 bit one).

Once open I usually check the histogram under the Image -> Adjustment -> Levels (CTRL + L shortcut) ... the sliders should be failry easy to explain .. the left one controls blacks, the middle is gamma (light intensity) and the right is whites. You can bring out subtle detail with this tool. You can also use the drop down box to work on individual colour channels (RGB)

As suggested white balance and contrast/saturation are also good ways to perk up an image. Just be careful not to blow out highlights.

Overall I am extremely impressed mate. Great stuff.

p.s i am new here too

[Matt. K]

Marvin
Here is the pro way, (and there are many diff ways of doing this), for dodge and burn. Go to Window/layers....click on the little arrow top right of the layers pallet and choose/New Layer. When the New Layer menu opens choose/Mode/overlay and click the box fill with 50% gray. Now click on the paintbrush icon left of screen and choose a brush size, top left of screen. Change the opacity to about 20%, (top middle of screen) and choose the black or white square coloured icon (Left bottom of screen) to burn or dodge. As you change the coloured icon the brush will dodge or burn depending on what colour you have chosen. When finished go to the layers menu and play with the opacity of the entire layer. Flatten the layers when finished.
If this is confusing to you let me know and I will post some screen shots of the menus.

[Marvin]

Thanks Matt. I'll have a go at that. Seems quite clear!