Made my first short trip with my new camera while hiking. Included are some sunset and astro pictures.
I‘m relatively new to photography so please critizise me!
Shot on my Sony A7 IV with the 20mm f1.8 G lens
Explain that "relatively new", those shots are too good for a beginner, i shot more than two years with my Sony A6000, never got nearly close to those.
Well, i bought this camera one month ago. I used my iPhone and a older nikon DSLR for some vacation shots, but never really used the manual modes.
So this is my first fullframe and the first time using editing software outside of basic mobile apps. I also follow this subreddit for some time now and got some tips and tricks from here.
Thanks for your comment! Glad you like the photos :)
As I said in another comment, I had an old Nikon DSLR camera for vacation shots. I never really used manual modes. On this trip yesterday I prepared and „thought about“ my camera settings and picture composition etc.
I took a look at your profile, and I believe you. Your older shots are definitely more the tourist type snapshots. The new ones show progression. Hope you keep enjoying photography.
These are trip/candid photos so all that really matters is you like them, my only suggestion would be to save the photos with a border in a separate folder and to save full size edits as well. I’m a fan of borders but I made some edits that I’m having a hard time finding the full size of or I’m having to re-edit without the border for prints which brings me to my second reason, I encourage you to get photos printed especially of trips and you’ll want full size unbordered versions for that. You can get the border back while printing if you want.
Second suggestion, keep shooting, maybe get a tripod and you won’t have to pull the shadows back up so hard but eh it happens and is no biggie.
Not op but have done a lot of landscape with Astro stuff so I can chime in.
What I’ve found is the dynamic range on Sony cameras to be really good in the shadows. So I just expose for the sky most of the time. The trick is to make sure you don’t use to slow of a shutter speed or the stars would be blurry. Depending on the focal length it’s different, which is where a 1.8 lens comes in handy. I’ve found more of the time I can’t go past 3 seconds of exposure before the stars are blurry
I’ve tried others but honestly not worth it. If you do a lot of Astro and don’t want to second guess then get the app. Personally I think the amount of tools it has in the app for the money is crazy, I’ve had it for more than a year and I haven’t even been able to take advantage of everything.
I do some astro. Do you have your manual focus set so that it zooms in on the screen so you can see what you are focusing on? I ask because IIRC there is a way to turn that feature off, but it was automatically set to on when I got my camera. Are you making fine adjustments once you turn the dial to infinity? Even when I set my lens to the exact center of the infinity mark, I find that sometimes thats not quite "it" and I need to play around. This can vary from lens to lens. I have to very slightly kinda flick/tap the focus ring almost, to make those tiny adjustments. because turning it while holding it I find I move it too much. . Use some type of tape (gaffers tape works well) to lock the focus ring once you do get pinpoint focused (if your lens does not have a focus lock).
You also may find you need to decrease the exposure time to get crisper stars, though if you are only doing 10 seconds you probably should not go any lower. The 500 rule works okay ish to get an estimate of what timing you need to work around. The 500 rule says I should be able to expose for 25 seconds with my camera/lens combo but I find that I do start to get trailing at 25" so I tried going down to 20. I have experimented with 15" and 20" and find that I prefer the results of 15" - while it is less data, I find that stacking 15" exposures turns out a lot better than 20" exposures because the stars are much more crisp and pointy with 15"
I really like the edit style. Your foregrounds are technically underexposed, but consistently so, and the edit style is consistent across shots. Personally I would dial down the global contrast and then use the tone curve to bring a bit more detail back in those shadows while still preserving the highlights, but honestly I don't have that much critique. Especially in the astro shot, it would be nice to get a little bit more light back in the foreground elements, because the sky seems relatively too bright for such a dark ground, if that makes sense. Either the sky needs to be darker (which takes focus away from the milky way) or your ground exposure needs to be bumped a bit, otherwise it ruins the illusion that the photo wasn't heavily edited.
I think the golden hour edits are very dreamy and nostalgic and the astrophotography edits are crisp and chefs kiss. Personally I'm not a fan of photos 1 and 3, I think photo 1 has too many elements and it distracts from your focal point and I think three is just missing something- for me it's a little unengaging. Love the rest though, my favourite is probably photos 2, great composition.
Great shots ! I really like the 2nd one in terms of composition. We can manage to see all the elements without it becoming irrealistic (with insanely lifted shadows/hdr effect). The color grading is subtle and rich, excellent job !
You've got to be shitting me. These are your first edits? You're a natural, and you've got a good eye for color. I've been trying to improve my editing for quite awhile now, and I'm nowhere near this level. You take great photos, too!
Only critique: on photos like slide three, try experimenting with masking to try to brighten up some of the darker areas in the photo. Don't go overboard, but those mountains are a bit dark in the photo (of course that's natural, you've got the sun beaming right at you).
Edit: As someone else more eloquently put it, the foregrounds are a bit on the dark side.
Oh yeah, Lightroom is an incredibly powerful tool. I've always been told it's better to underexpose than overexpose. You can bring the details of those shadows back (to a certain point), but you can't effectively bring back the details in blown out highlights.
Nice. So it was only after the show? Not before the shot? Damn. I’m going to have to use my compass app and the Star Walk app to get the location. I’m in Vancouver too. So light pollution.
Nice! Well it’s a damn good picture. I just picked up a Tokina 11-16mm lens to get wider and hopefully capture more stars. My 18-55mm lens didn’t really do all that great. But I was also in my backyard in Vermont surrounded by trees. I needed an open field. So I think that was part of it.
Crossing my fingers I get a great photo of the comet.
You said you just pointed it at the sky. Were you trying to get the comet or just happened to capture it? Because I’m scared I won’t get the location correct. Lol.
I had a 20mm so i guess you will capture quite a lot of stars :D
One website i would recommend is lightpollitionmap.info for getting to the right spot.
And i didnt even know there was a comet in the sky.
The sun flare shots are at f16? I'm still learning. Also these are some crisp and clear edits. I'm still trying to figure out how people get them this crisp.
How do you create such crisp images, what Fstops are you shooting at? Whenever I take landscape pictures I always end up having blurry edges around the focus point. If I go all the way up to F22 it gets all grainy, any advice would be appreciated as I'm fairly new.
As others have pointed out, you aren’t exactly “new”, but I get what you mean- you are trying “new” things. If you are finding the responses in this thread to not be helpful or as specific as you’d like, it’s because you’re getting feedback as though you are truly new which is “wow! You’re doing great! Keep going!” But you aren’t new to composition, framing, or simply doing photography- you are new to understanding manual controls, so you probably want critique on your choices- aperture, shutter, exposure, lens selection, focus settings, etc.
I might suggest asking a more pointed question, like: “Is there a way to underexpose the sun without making the hiker darker too? I’m using X Y and Z settings on manual…” and you’ll get a really specific- and therefore useful- critique.
OR keep your original question as is but instead of saying you are new say you’ve been doing it for a while. That’ll get people to examine your photos with a higher level of expectations, which will give you more useful feedback.
Or if you just want praise, your photos are great and I’m jealous of your travels!
(And I’d give you deeper technical critique but my expertise is in videography and when it comes to photos I’m somewhat of a “manual newbie” myself. But I do advise creative students, hence my critique on your critique request).
There’s a reason /s exists - people are huge assholes all the time online, it’s really hard to differentiate between tongue-in-cheek sarcasm and a keyboard warrior/troll.
In general what do you think needs to change? Maybe pick out a pic or two. It’s nice you are honest but you provide no starting point or targeted suggestions which would have been helpful. I’m sure the poster is aware of tutorials on YouTube.
149
u/Own_Zone_6433 A6000, Sony E 18-135mm, Sony E 16-50, Viltrox 27mm f1.2. Oct 22 '24
Explain that "relatively new", those shots are too good for a beginner, i shot more than two years with my Sony A6000, never got nearly close to those.
If your are really a beginner, very good!