Feedback wanted on a couple photos please

[Joey83]

These photos were taken with a Sony RX100 m1 over the last few days, they have not been edited in any way.

I used the following settings for them:

Photo 1: F/1.8 aperture | 2 second timer | 30 second shutterspeed on a cheap tripod | ISO-400 | 10mm focal length.

View attachment 173858

Photo 2: F/1.8 aperture | 2 second timer | 10 second shutterspeed on a cheap tripod | ISO-1600 | 10mm focal length.


View attachment 173859

 

[TexasGMG]

@ Road

 

[chanceboarder]

From a technical perspective I would say both images are over exposed by at least a couple of stops. The foreground in both is very hot and highlights are blown out in portions. The images are both night scenes so you would except dark areas to look dark and brighter areas to look bright. As it is everything looks bright, there is very light shadow to tell your eyes that you're looking at a night scene. Even though there is an artificial light source coming from camera left in both images you still wouldn't expect everything to be as bright as it is. Night scenes are generally dark with lots of shadows, doesn't mean pitch black, but shadows with some detail is what you're generally looking for overall.

Second to the exposure issue the images have white balance issues, this is especially the case in image 2. Unless it was a creative choice to make it more yellow the camera is having a hard time adjusting the white balance to deal with the artificial light entering the scene. I'm assuming the grass and trees are not yellow and are more green, same goes for the brick retaining wall in the foreground which is probably grey. If I wasn't going to edit this in post and just wanted to use the images straight out of camera or was shooting only jpegs then setting a specific white balance in camera would be the preferable way to go.

Keep this in mind next time you go out to shoot and hopefully it helps.

 

[Joey83]

Thank you, I'm new to this kind of photography and wanted to give it a try, I appreciate the feedback.

 

[Murphy Slaw]

The first one is really green....

 

[Ubiety]

Excellent for reaching out for feedback!

IMO a shot that prominently includes stars should be limited to around 20 seconds shutter at the max or you start to get streaking/elongated stars. Compare the stars in the first and second pics - in the first you can see the stars start to elongate, not so much in the second. This may or may not bother you but is something to potentially think about. Also you may take a look at using different light modifiers to better shape the light that you are casting; a little creative light shaping could have helped with the burned out wall in the bottom of the second shot. Keep experimenting!!!

And you will have better results in post with RAW images.

 

[Bama_Kiwi]

I know almost nothing about photography other than the "rule of thirds" - I'm the kind of guy that takes a photo with his iPhone and taps "auto-adjust" and considers that good enough, so, me commenting on your photos is next to worthless.

That said, your photos seem a bit too bright.

Hats off to you for diving into a hobby and putting yourself out their to criticism though. Keep posting photos here - would love to see how you improve.

 

[old_man]

Having been a professional photographer doing scenic and commercial work, I agree that they are over exposed. The problem really lies in the uncontrolled light. You have a light pollution problem. Ideally the sky should be darker and the stars should pop more. You pretty much can't do that with light pollution. The foreground lighting is way too hot. If there is a way to cut that down your images would be more dramatic. The 20 second rule the guy gave is pretty good, but it does not take into account the length of the lens. You can go longer with a wider angle lens. If I am forced to go longer and the stars are the most important thing, I use what is called a Scotch Mount that rotates the camera at sidereal rates. It is how we used to do 20 minute exposures to capture novas and such. Beware if you do that, everything terrestrial will be smeared.

 

[Joey83]

Thanks everyone, I will give it another try, the camera I'm using is a Sony RX100 m1 as my tripod won't support the weight of my Canon EOS 7D and Canon 70-200 F/2.8 lens.

 

[Ubiety]

I like the MeFoto RoadTrip tripod. Fairly compact folded up, holds heavy gear and can convert to monopod.

 

[Joey83]

I'll take a look @Greg Eigsti my tripod is an old Osawa GR 193 one.

 

[Joey83]

Here is my original photothread, I will be uploading photos there, feel free to take a look.

Joey83's photo thread.

I plan on updating this thread whenever I have new photos to upload. I'll begin with my OB badge and 3 off road capable rigs, but there will also be aviation/nature/animal photos uploaded here in the future. 14 by Joachim Sandven, on Flickr 20160827_141236 by Joachim Sandven, on Flickr...

www.overlandbound.com

 

[Clean Drink Adventures]

As others mentioned, the artificial ambient light is not only too bright, but certainly contributes to the yellowed white balance. The RX100 is great, I have shot magazine covers with later versions of it, but it will be a little fiddly with this type of imagery. It's also worth mentioning that most shots like this will require a good bit of editing to achieve the results you commonly see with the best images.