Flickr Users - I'd appreciate some criticism!

[LosOjos]

Hi all,

I know that there are a few photographers amongst you, and I hope that there are some flickr users too.

As some may already know, I've recently taken up photography as a hobby.

The problem is, I'm not getting any constructive criticism from friends or family, and I would really like some!

So if you're on flickr, please add me/look at my pohtos (I don't really understand how flickr works yet!) and let me know what you think of my photos, I'd really appreciate it!

My username (and link to my photo stream) is: JoshJohnson88

Thank you

[alan-d]

I've added you as a contact, I'm no expert but I'll have a proper look when I get home. Maybe we can struggle through together . It seems we live in the same city

[stevenlong1985]

Hey I've added you too. I have a few pics on there. its good to look at others to get ideas. I'm still new to photography, the Pictures of The Floozy In The Jacuzzi in Birmingham are cool

[LosOjos]

Thank you both :-)

Alan, are you from sunny Wolverhampton too? We haven't got much but the Great Western almost makes up for it for me!

Any criticism is welcome and I'll do the same for you, it's the only way we'll learn lol

[alan-d]

I do live in Wolverhampton but to be honest I don't get out locally too much with the camera. I also have a site at Alan-D-Photos which I use to publish pics. Like you I haven't got my head around Flickr and all the functions yet.

[ICT_GUY]

Most basic rules for photography that make the biggest difference when starting out.
Rule of thirds,
Compose your shot properly,
A good photo tells a story and has intrinsic interest,
If you want to be thought of a good photographer only show people your best Photos.

Once these are taken into account you can be more creative and learn all the tricks of using a camera,

[CHR1S]

What camera do you use? Lenses?

[LosOjos]

What camera do you use? Lenses?

I have a Samsung NX10, at the moment the only lens I have is the kit 18-55mm lens, I'm saving for the pancake lens as I'd like to do more/better portraits, but I love macro photography too (although there doesn't appear to be an NX mount macro lens, I may do as others suggested in another thread and get an OM adapter so I can use some of the ridiculously cheap OM lenses available)

[CHR1S]

Not familiar with the NX10 but learn how the f-stops affect your depth of field.
Using the Canadian Goose as an example, the feet and tail are blurred and head, make sure your focal point is what your shooting for and not the background.

The HDR is ok, how many bracketed photos did you use to create it?

Best bet is to just keep taking photos and learn your camera.

[LosOjos]

Not familiar with the NX10 but learn how the f-stops affect your depth of field.
Using the Canadian Goose as an example, the feet and tail are blurred and head, make sure your focal point is what your shooting for and not the background.

Yeah I noticed that as I was uploading it, unfortunately it was a bit rushed (the thing kept charging at me!), but I learnt a valuable lesson about using manual focus rather than relying on the camera to get it right for me!

The HDR is ok, how many bracketed photos did you use to create it?

I used 3 stops, each 2 stops apart. I'm not ashamed to admit that I let photoshop do the leg work on that one, I only later read up on how to do it manually for greater control. Also, I didn't realise that there were facilities in Camera RAW to fix lens distortion and "straighten" the photo; more lessons learned!

Thanks for the feedback, it confirms what I suspected were problems, so I can go back and work on them

[CHR1S]

I use HDR photography software & plugin for Lightroom, Aperture & Photoshop - Tone Mapping, Exposure Fusion & High Dynamic Range Imaging for photography for my HDR work, I find it better than the inbuilt PS tool.

Colmore School - Kings Heath.jpg

HDR is very much a personal thing, people like ALOT of HDR others a little. Make your HDR pics to your liking.

My flickr is Flickr: mini.chris' Photostream I haven't renewed my pro membership yet, so there are a lot of pictures missing.

[LosOjos]

Love that picture, I'll take a look at that plugin when I'm at home. Dumb question time: is Lightroom a completely separate program, or is it a Photoshop plugin? I'm using CS5 at the moment but I've heard quite a few people mention Lightroom now...

[CHR1S]

I dont use Photoshop, I use Corel Paint Shop Pro... never really found the need to splash the cash on PS

[LosOjos]

I splashed for PS simply because all of the tutorials I've been looking at are based on it, and although I could probably find the equivalent features in any package (I wanted to just stick to GIMP to be honest, but it doesn't support Samsung's RAW format ) I thought for simplicity's sake while I'm learning I'll just use PS.

Expect another thread sometime in the future on the pro's and con's of different packages...

[CHR1S]

I shot in RAW for a while, saw no advantage as I was post processing more than relying on my own skill with the camera. Try shooting in jpeg while you learn and then swap to RAW.