30D Second Batch C&C

rgiller

I've been out on a few trips recently with the new 30D and I think I'm getting more used to the camera: using it in manual mode, taking different themed photos, etc. Here's a few from the last two weeks, that I have also processed in lightroom. C&C appreciated

First go at a long exposure:



Thought the shape of this bench arm was pretty nice:



I faded the green out a bit in this one to make the flower stand out more:



I thought the sepia conversion made this look a bit more haunting:



Sky overdone a little in this?



Action shot, maybe overdid it on the vignetting?





There's a few more in the set if you click on my sig below. Thanks!

bradnailer

Nice set, love the bench arm shot.

paulusdu

Great shots, i love the ruins on the hill, i don;t think the sky being over processed takes anything away from the photo, makes it a bit more vivd.

Bench is really nice too, i would never have seen that shot myself :-)

Flower shot seems a bit dull, but its a nice shot none the less

Whats going on with the beach/lake shot, if you take out the "irish hills" in the background, i would expect it to be some sort of desert ! nice in sepia though

Borderfox

Very nice shots, there is something good in all of them. First one is excellent

padi89

1,3 and 6 are really nice.

rgiller

Thanks for the comments!

paulusdu wrote: »

Whats going on with the beach/lake shot, if you take out the "irish hills" in the background, i would expect it to be some sort of desert ! nice in sepia though

On the way to Gouganebarra in Cork there is this kind of petrified forest, where there are the remnants of a lot of dead trees coming out of a lake. It's a weird place. I'll put up a colour photo later to show you what it looks like

dakar

For what its worth, my opinions.

#1 gorgeous, beautifully controlled exposure, makes me wish I was there.

#2 nice idea, nice tones in the wood, but doesn't really work for me, maybe the big dark area to the left is just too distracting. Maybe more of a close up on that lovely curve flowing through the frame with an emphasis on the wood grain?

#3 I love the symmetry of the flower and the position in the frame. The reds could do with a bit more Oomph. I dont know if you shot wide open, if not it might be possible to get a bit more blur in the background giving the flower some more prominence.

#4 certainly haunting! I'm not sure if the 'normal' background highlights the wierdness of the petrified forest by giving a contrast to it, or just looks jarring. Is it possible to get closer and shoot from a lower angle? Might be a cool prehistoric looking landscape if you isolate it from its surroundings.

#5 Like the sky, love the cattle! again, I'd prefer if you could have gotten closer and isolated the ruins/mound from the surroundings against that lovely interesting sky.

#6 I like but can't articulate why, it feels like there's 'something' missing, but I like it anyway (not very useful I know:D)

All the above to be taken with a pinch of salt, but I've taken on board some of the recent discussion on C&C in the various threads lately and I hope you find this constructive!

Darren

EDIT just had a look on flickr, love Angry Tree and Storm Coming. D

jackdaw

Very nice shots !!

Where are those ruins ?

they look dangerously close to toppling over, especially on the left side..

AnCatDubh

I like the long exposure one - one point on it though. The rocks in the foreground in particular but also evidenced elsewhere look like a flat on flash was used. I'm assuming you weren't using flash with a long exposure and that it is just the natural light reflection off the wet / shiny rocks deliberately over exposed to capture the water candy floss(?). I think it takes from what otherwise is really nice.

Did you shoot with a ND filter? If not that may have helped. Another technique (assume a tripod here) is to take a normal exposure first of all or even a deliberately underexposed shot to begin with. Then take your long exposure. In post processing merge the two blending the rocks (parts of) from the normal exposure with the water from the longer exposure. Just an idea.

Its good though.

Hugh_C

Nice images rgiller, here's a few observations, ignore if you wish ...

Long exposure: really beautiful although I'd prefer if it was a tad wider, a little too tight at the bottom.

Bench: probably the best of the lot - if there was any detail to be had in the dark area that'd be a plus (without compromising the rest of the image though)

Flowers: on my monitor the reds are bleeding out - over saturated and loss of detail because of this. I understand that this may be a technical issue on my part, but if I'm having issues, so might other viewers.

Sepia: not wild about it, would prefer it much tighter without the horizon, gnarled stumps only.

Sky overdone: yep, it is for me. Also I'd leave the viewer guessing about the scale and clone out the cattle.

Vignette: love it, maybe a little heavy but I love the way it focuses your eye.

rgiller

Thanks again for the comments: very constructive. A lot better than I usually get!

jackdaw wrote: »

Very nice shots !!

Where are those ruins ?

they look dangerously close to toppling over, especially on the left side..

These ruins are at Clonmacnoise near Athlone and they do look like they're on the verge of collapsing. You can walk right up to them though if you go there, so I guess they're not all that dangerous. I do have some tighter cropped images which I can post up next week