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Third Week learning Photography & Affinity Photo


I'm Ant

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The top image just needs a bit more cropping from the top and Ease back on the HDR the image looks too busy, better to make it more punchy with colour.

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all rather good for a third week of learning
keep this one in mind: the first place you stand or place the tripod we should all use is very likely not the better spot for the better photo. It might mean just a step to the left or tow step to the right; or getting a little higher, lower, closer, or further back . Take tractor --- good enough as a "recording" photo . However the better photo from a photography point may have been from a lower camera angle that removed some of the background -- I say better because there is often never a "best". 
You last photo : maybe a little further back so the cars are not so close to the frame (??). The better photo of the building may  be without any modern cars --- it looks a very old building ;)
Final tip: concentrate on basic photography and editing mostly; plenty of time to be arty later ;).
 

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Thanks ianrb I found once I've uploaded pics there's things I don't like about them a day later so I'll review them for longer before posting. I've backed way off a bit on the tone mapping. I like the oil painting sort of look I used to paint, I'm a big fan of Constable and Johannes Vermeer.    I agree about the modern cars there's an alarm box on the house at the top pic I was thinking of using clone  to remove that,  only thought of it after editing. The tractor was fenced in on a driveway, when I get a tripod I'll experiment with going far lower to the ground if I can. Anglezarke reservoir looks great after the fire fighting on Winter Hill and the heatwaves dried  up the shallow end.

964459240_LakeofGreen3840.thumb.jpg.5c944e93d68f3f355d9b2e6a1a1a0bf4.jpgIMG_0592.thumb.jpg.90511b408ec350eeb7bc85ab47d49193.jpgIMG_0516.thumb.jpg.48e3a8cf7262e4e2e514921df25ef8a4.jpg491622485_Tractor3840.thumb.jpg.32e514b7f33a1c7b6c4e377c0fda5477.jpg

 

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1 hour ago, I'm Ant said:

so I'll review them for longer before posting.
Emotions can be very blinding at times. Generally; it doesn't matter when we see  your photo; so there is no need to rush sharing . It can be amazing what you will notice after not seeing the photo for a few hours/days/weeks -- a few years later you will likely be thinking "what was I thinking"; but is the learning process of photography. 
I often have several advanced edits on the go at the same time so I get a break between each; but then I have too much spare time .

 

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That's better re the house, I can hear the birds tweeting now and the cows mooing lol!

The river scene needs levelling up. still water doesn't slope, see your image below for the difference. (Rotated -1.7º)
1752767299_ScreenShot2018-09-06at08_09_45.png.9cdabcf0c7a2f12812450e70bfabb03b.png
1813881940_ScreenShot2018-09-06at08_08_11.thumb.png.9e4d37e51de97b8c266a5098a55e6c44.png

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  • 3 weeks later...
5 hours ago, I'm Ant said:

Thanks  for the tip,   my first photo edits look dreadful now. 

It all a learning curve, your eye will get trained to these things and you'll eventually take photo's that will need minimal editing because you will have a check list in your head of the things to correct prior to taking the shot. This check list will eliminate a lot of editing and time spent composing an image will be time well spent.

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On 9/6/2018 at 8:10 AM, firstdefence said:

The river scene needs levelling up. still water doesn't slope, see your image below for the difference

It is not always obvious if you have stil water on a slope, especialy if there is no horizon. I find the best way is to look at objects and their reflections. The reflection should always be vertically below the object.

I found your canal scene the most attractive of your images.

John

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On 06 September 2018 at 8:10 AM, firstdefence said:

The river scene needs levelling up. still water doesn't slope, see your image below for the difference. (Rotated -1.7º)

 

3 hours ago, firstdefence said:

It all a learning curve, your eye will get trained to these things and you'll eventually take photo's that will need minimal editing because you will have a check list in your head of the things to correct prior to taking the shot. This check list will eliminate a lot of editing and time spent composing an image will be time well spent.


What causes the original distortion in the river scene to look like it is flowing uphill?

Is this something that could have been corrected "in the camera" when the image was taken?  Or is it just the way camera lenses distort the image and nothing can be done about it? (Except in post processing)

The attached is, somewhat, how I would have envisaged seeing the scene if I had been standing where the photographer was.

 

canalreworked.jpg

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I have to admit that I did not get any impression that the water was flowing uphill in the original image, nor any other obvious impression of slope. When composing a picture like this it is not always feasible to detect a slope. My camera has an optional horizontal alignment bar in the viewfinder, but that is not much use if I am trying to vertically align an object and its reflection.

John

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CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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There are many factors that dictate how a scene will look, lenses and their distortions, zoom lenses can compress and make something look "more vertical" in a 2D plane sense wider angles barrel a scene, light and shadow can create light tricks that can fool the less observed into making compositional errors, height is another oft ignored tool.

Most digital cameras nowadays have guide lines that can be superimposed over the rear screen or viewfinder, such as the rule of thirds lines or general grids, there can be optical illusions to consider where the lay of the land conspires to give an illusion of tilt where there is none. Still or slow moving water is a good check for level and the ripples can be a guide to the horizontal plane.

A walk down memory lane... As a young lad I used to use a water level (basically a tube filled with water) to get accurate levels for groundwork over long distances. Later on in life I also used the same method to install a 180ft boundary fence, the neighbour was fascinated by this as he thought I would have used a laser level or spirit level but I always found the water level more accurate over long distances.

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water horizons need to be level; however there are times the shape of the land around lakes and rivers will often give a false impression of the water not being level 
Having said that; most water usually does need a second look

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  • 5 weeks later...

269808059_Landscape22Three.thumb.jpg.3610a4b1ab077dc1f6f2d93013f20ee8.jpg

Hi Hi guys  I've been busy,   I've enabled the artificial horizon in my camera  so I can't get the lamp posts and horizon as wrong. Thanks for all your input, I think I've improved a lot. I might get that EF-M prime lens  next.

I took this shot from near Winter Hill  looking towards Manchester. 

I had  a go at a bracketed photo  merged the three shots in Affinity Photo and did a bit of magic. Got myself a tripod now.

Canon EOS M50 + EF-M 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS
Edited in Affinity Photo
Bracketed HDR
ISO 125
AV 11
TV 1/100

 

 

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Hi Ant, you are getting better and better.
Have a play with the levels adjustment filter to get a stronger image. Where there are flat parts of the levels histogram move the slider until the vertical marker hits the edge and the histogram starts to move up like the base of a mountain. (see images below)
1563905603_ScreenShot.png.870ceaa1bff393458d29f1bd78e4997e.png 605678359_ScreenShot1.png.73ccc713740ee26177ab27dea404c858.png

8331673_ScreenShot2.png.970ba070cf0c0eb5c460cd9c4f2fa34c.png1672583354_ScreenShot3.png.fe29892d26336f6d73b447d8cec6a916.png

The image should look a bit more dynamic, now move the gamma a little to the right to give it more punch, you don't need much just a little and your image should pop. 

 

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Hello @I'm Ant two of your pics where so inspiring to me i actually tried to do some HDR tricks with it.
My first idea was to try do some color restoration close to natural look ... i don't know your weather but i just guessed taking reference to object colorization.
Hope you will like and i really hope your photography course is going well.

 

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