Photography advice needed

Quackles

I wandered up a mountain yesterday to take some photographs seeing as the day was so nice. It looked amazing to the eye, but yet again, it doesn't translate so well to a photograph. I've enclosed some pictures. The first two are 'alright', I'd like them clearer but could live with it. Once you zoom in at all, the faintness of the image is a big problem (see image 3 - tried to photograph my house ). Is there a way to eliminate or decrease that fuzziness that distant objects seem to get on fine days? I only have a fujifilm s9600 with a fixed lens, so new glass isn't an option, unless you know of someone flogging cheap dslrs Would any filters help? Thanks, folks, any advice appreciated.

slumped

Hi

Not sure what the main subject is in each photo.

In 1, the bushes distract from view.
In 2, the cloud appears to be the main interest
In 3, I'm not sure what you were looking for.

A Nikon D40/80 would be a good buy and wont break the bank.

You can shoot as much as you want and only keep the good ones.

I used to have a Nikon F55 but soon changed over to Nikon D70 and have not looked back

S

Quackles

slumped wrote:

Hi

Not sure what the main subject is in each photo.

In 1, the bushes distract from view.
In 2, the cloud appears to be the main interest
In 3, I'm not sure what you were looking for.

A Nikon D40/80 would be a good buy and wont break the bank.

You can shoot as much as you want and only keep the good ones.

I used to have a Nikon F55 but soon changed over to Nikon D70 and have not looked back

S

In 1, the town in the valley was the subject, but the colours look washed out and faded.
In 2, the cloud was indeed the focus, but I would have liked the ground to stand out more too.
In 3, I was photographing my house It isn't a 'photograph', more of a 'snapshot'.. I just wanted to know how to take out the faint look.

I'm thinking of upgrading.. I do love my camera, but it definitely has limitations. It's only 3 months old, though, I can't justify the spend just yet!

Ghost Train

not much you can do, it looks like it was just a bit too hazy. i would say adjusting the white balance might help. using a tripod for long zoom shots whould stop camera shake being an issue although here the shots aren't blurry. a dslr would be better, but i think the main problem is just the conditions

elven

It was incredibly hazy yesterday. Apart from, as you say, good glass - and a polariser, there's nothing you can do to cut through the haze - from a photography point of view the best thing to do with that is try to take pictures that work with it, or take pictures that avoid anything where the haze affects the subject.

At the moment you're trying to take in too much of a scene I think, and the picture just doesn't have the ability to contain all of the information that you're seeing with your eyes when you're standing up on that hill. Try getting in closer to things, and filling the frame with the subject. Try looking for strong shapes or lines or patterns. There's also some photoshop techniques that can help yo get the most out of your pictures because straight out of the camera they are never going to look their best... but that's a whole day's worth of typing and I should be getting ready to go out just now

Fionn

hi
The foreground in the first two are a bit distracting, and perhaps might be cropped out.
The camera you have should be capable of resolving the image to acceptable standards, it has a 9 mp ccd and a 28-300mm equivalent focal range also is capable of ISO 80.
So i think the haze was a big factor in these photographs,
one of the easiest things you can do to improve your photographs is to get up really early, the air is much different just around dawn allowing lots of more light to hit the sensor in your camera. (makes note to self to follow this advice :rolleyes: )

As Elven mentioned your probably trying to take in too much of the scene, most landscape photographs benefit from using a wide angle lens which probs isn't available to you.

good luck!
like your web site - well done

Quackles

Thanks for the advice, folks! Yeah, I agree about distracting foreground - was not happy with any of the photos I took yesterday, aside from macro shots. I'll try to work on my framing, or at the very least, cropping!

Fionn, dawn sounds great in theory, but unfortunately I need a babysitter when I go on my photographic jaunts, and I don't think my mother would appreciate a pre-dawn call

Thanks for checking out the website.. haven't touched it in a few weeks , busy busy busy, but it's a fun hobby. If only I could get my pictures to look as good, we'd be laughing

TJM

Haze gets worse with distance so one solution is a graduated unsharp mask from top to bottom of the image. Examples here:
http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1067