Took my first DSLR out today - C&C appreciated

DutchGuy

After a fair bit of deliberation, and reading some of the posts here I finally bought my first DSLR so got to take my new (new for me anyway, it's a Canon 300D) camera out for the first time today. Any advice would be very welcome.

njburke

Great shots for your first day, I particularly like the last, I presume you were on Bull Island.
The seal looks a little lost in the frame , perhaps a crop might improve it.

Niall

Weidii

I love the first one, the colours and composure are great. Where did you find the fur seal?

AnCatDubh

i like #1 and #3 in particular.

#1 - i think you've done well. If you take a read of the thread currently running on handling high dynamic ranges, you'll see that your metering has served you well for this. It has produced a silhouette and i don't know if that was the intention but in my opinion it works really nice for the scene. I like the little detail in the bird and the kite.

#3 is nice too - it could probably take a little more saturation on the sky and the ground but you'd need to be careful where the sun is peering through. good job,

#2 in my opinion would benefit from better composition. A zoom in further, shifting the subject out of the horizontal center of the frame, a better angle - i think, would have contributed to a way better shot. You are very limited in terms of the colour content so you really need your subject to appeal to the viewer. Thus in my opinion you'd need to get in there closer and shift your vantage point.

Well done on the purchase - i hope you'll enjoy it greatly.

0utpost31

#3 is great. How did you keep the foreground so bright? Did you use a filter?

YogiBear

I love the first one too!! Happy snapping!

DutchGuy

Thanks folks,

I agree that the photo of the seal is not very well composed, unfortunately I only have a 50mm lens and didn't think I could crawl any closer without scaring him. It was at the far end of Bull island by the way - up towards Sutton, there were about fifteen of them there.

Outpost, unfortunately I don't have any filters so used Photoshop.

Spyral

I like the last one best on all accounts. But the trick is to KEEP AT IT!

5uspect

Those are terrible first shots. They're sharp, well composed, the horizon is even straight.

Congrats on the new camera DutchGuy. I'm looking to see what you do on your next day out!

PixelTrawler

#3 is well taken. Its difficult to get the foreground light and still keep the sunset.

#2 could be cropped better, theres something odd about where the seal is in the shot.

#1 is nice

shepthedog

Well done, excellent first time shots... I think anyone would be proud of number three. Great composition..
Best of luck starting out and keep shooting..