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These are a few of the shots from a recent trip to Japan with a group of young performers.

Another Buddha- these amazing statues are just everywhere


This is the giant Buddha Shrine at Nara- These sculptures are huge and imposing.


The Golden Temple (the tree is a little soft- not really happy with this one).


Young performers at a school we visited

The 3# looks surreal. I think a little local contrast adjustment may help to improve sharpness.

I like the composition in #4 but it too appears a tad soft.

I like #3 as well: it's unmistakably Japan.

Hard to avoid gettign 1000's of people in your shots at the golden temple. Its so popular.

surenj wrote:The 3# looks surreal. I think a little local contrast adjustment may help to improve sharpness.

I like the composition in #4 but it too appears a tad soft.

I couldn't agree more. On image 4 I was using a Canon 40D with a 100mm macro in low light and a high iso- that might explain that one, but number three has me a bit stumped. Same camera in bright sunlight using a 17-85 is usm. What do you mean about local contrast adjustment? Are you saying I should try raising the contrast in the custom settings on the camera? One thought- I did have an ND circular polarising filter on when I took number 3- maybe that had something to do with it.

Numbers 1 and 2 are really sharp- same camera and lenses and I hadn't changed any settings for these (but no filter).

Any thoughts would be most appreciated

ian.bertram wrote:What do you mean about local contrast adjustment?

check this out
http://www.digitalpixels.net/2009/07/photoshop/local-contrast-enhancement-with-photoshop-tutorial/

Also if you try HDR, this may improve on the details to make it look a little sharper.

I think, if you start from a soft image, this is THE worst starting point to try and salvage it. That's why I think it's so great that the newer cameras allow you to see this with their 3inch 900k LCDs. One of the main reasons I want to upgrade so that I can improve on my keeper rate by realising that the previous shot was not up to scratch interms of focus or blur.

Nice work Ian, probably prefer the 3rd if you took one step backwards to get the tree in and both edges of the roofs, though that probably would have had you falling off a bridge into a pond full of carp

Hi Ian

I must say I like #2. That chap doesn't look happy. I think the rolling pin he is holding is too small for the pastry he wants to make.

Regs

Glen wrote:Nice work Ian, probably prefer the 3rd if you took one step backwards to get the tree in and both edges of the roofs, though that probably would have had you falling off a bridge into a pond full of carp

agreed with this...

anyway, Japan is one place i'm planning to visit hopefully in the not-too-distant-future, specifically Kyoto.

Thanks for sharing

Thanks for all the constructive comments.
...and no, all I really needed to do to get all of picture three in frame would have been to turn that small ring on my lens a little more!