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Beginner Amateur. What do i do?
- Thread starter Yen
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- amateur mobile phone
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- 1,076
- Name
- Mike
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Do about what?
Picture shown, has the sun in shot, over exposed cos its bright.. and beach in foreground a tad dark, 'so its not emitting or reflecting a lot of light.
What do you want to achieve?
In camera light meter has probably averaged the brightness of the whole scene, ie bright sun, and dim shore and come up with some sort of 'average' to cover the range as best it can, and the results are what you see.
If you want to dim down the sun.. that would beg diming down the whole shot, which would darken the foreshore more. Conversely, to brighten up the foreshore, you would up the exposure over the whole shot, which would brighten the shore but blow the sun out a bit more.
This is how cameras work, and you could get more elaborate on the metering, but the answer would be the same, you have a tonal range in the scene wider than the camera can capture... so you have to pick settings to get what's most important, exposed to your taste as best suits.
You could try holding back the sky and sun with a graduated filter, to dim the top portion of the frame... but you could get the fade line wrong, and its only going to fudge the mater a bit, underlying tonal range remains,or you could get technical and take multiple exposures, one for the bright spot (hi-lights) one for the mid-tones and one for the shadows, and merge them in post process, (HDR or High Dynamic Range' manipulation,,, an old technique employed by masters of old with very low dynamic range glass plates, brought up to date with a computator!).. But, the underlying issue remains, you have a very bright sun in shot and a shaddowed foreground,,,, try a different time of day.... and/or mess with various exposure methods, metering means, and as much paraphernalia by way of grads or multi-image merges as you like really.,.
Back to top.... What would we do about what? And what do you want to achieve?
Picture shown, has the sun in shot, over exposed cos its bright.. and beach in foreground a tad dark, 'so its not emitting or reflecting a lot of light.
What do you want to achieve?
In camera light meter has probably averaged the brightness of the whole scene, ie bright sun, and dim shore and come up with some sort of 'average' to cover the range as best it can, and the results are what you see.
If you want to dim down the sun.. that would beg diming down the whole shot, which would darken the foreshore more. Conversely, to brighten up the foreshore, you would up the exposure over the whole shot, which would brighten the shore but blow the sun out a bit more.
This is how cameras work, and you could get more elaborate on the metering, but the answer would be the same, you have a tonal range in the scene wider than the camera can capture... so you have to pick settings to get what's most important, exposed to your taste as best suits.
You could try holding back the sky and sun with a graduated filter, to dim the top portion of the frame... but you could get the fade line wrong, and its only going to fudge the mater a bit, underlying tonal range remains,or you could get technical and take multiple exposures, one for the bright spot (hi-lights) one for the mid-tones and one for the shadows, and merge them in post process, (HDR or High Dynamic Range' manipulation,,, an old technique employed by masters of old with very low dynamic range glass plates, brought up to date with a computator!).. But, the underlying issue remains, you have a very bright sun in shot and a shaddowed foreground,,,, try a different time of day.... and/or mess with various exposure methods, metering means, and as much paraphernalia by way of grads or multi-image merges as you like really.,.
Back to top.... What would we do about what? And what do you want to achieve?
Wow! I'm a total beginner for this. I actually wanted the water to look inviting but 'you like.. Know its dangerous' and with a melancholic feel to it. i tried to tone down the brightness of the sun, but it takes away the effects on the water too. I'm only using Lightroom in my phone to edit it and i still have a lot to learn in taking pictures . I really didn't expect for any reply. I am glad, thanks.
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![DSC_2385 (2)[1]-1.jpg](https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/data/attachments/252/252308-be07c656692bc1194248d37843f3d88f.jpg "DSC_2385 (2)[1]-1.jpg")
- Messages
- 1,076
- Name
- Mike
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Oh-Kay... well, it's not something you can 'correct' in lightroom, cos it wasn't 'wrong' to begin with. Its a case of getting it as close as or CinC (Clean in Camera) as you can to begin with,
That sun be bright... its always bright if you can see it, so you you need/want to see it?
You have got the horizon bang on horizontal which suggests you could employ a graduated filter probably more successfully, bottom of frame looks darker than the middle/top, and there's large expanse of sky. so you could use a grad and not have too much worry about it being skew of any foreground object cutting the fade... but do you want that much fade?
The sun, is aprox 1/3 the frame in from the right, suggesting you have deliberately or inadvertently tried to follow the 'Rule of Thirds' for classic competition..... but, that sun still be bright, you could move it out of frame, and get a tighter tonal range in the remainder...
But the main feature of the shot is the sun filtering through the raggy clouds... take the sun away completely you are probably chucking baby out with the bath-water.
To get what you suggest,. as in the scary sea and the soft sunlight... personally, 1) I would get down a lot lower, and get more of that moody beach foreground into the frame. 2) I would probably risk the grey-grad... (I have used a pair of grad-tint sun-spex on the compact on the beach before now!), to hold back the sky, a-n-d I would be tempted to back that with a polarise to hold back everything and saturate the blue, 'maybe' take out some glare and reflections from the water. 3) I would have to make a choice on exposure and whether the sky or beach was the more important... I would probably bias the beach, and try lighten that up as a fair bit, and getting low, catch some shadow to emphasis the texture in the breakers and beach pebbles.
It's one of those situations you could shoot and re-shoot in so many different ways to get so many different interpretations of what is essentially a very simple composition. but that's where the tricks lie..
But... differences are not to be found in post-process but getting as much as you can CinC at the point of capture.... the 'niggle' being that bright sun and shadowed foreground and a range of brigness thats too much for your sensor or for film, and in all likelihood even the human eye.. on that, as you look out over the sea, you will likely shade your eyes from the bright sun, to see 'beach'; messing with filters or HDR you are doing much the same as your brain, that's merging the two pictures it sees, one of the foreground and one of the brighter sky, into a single image it can interpret.... only here you are doing the interpretation for an audience who will look at your photo, not the real scene.
Ie the camera is capturing a reality that you do not 'see' and you are trying to present something that is an altered reality 'like' you see it, not necessarily whats really there, THis is photography.. the misalignment of reality and perception and playing with the possibilities in that margin....
That sun be bright... its always bright if you can see it, so you you need/want to see it?
You have got the horizon bang on horizontal which suggests you could employ a graduated filter probably more successfully, bottom of frame looks darker than the middle/top, and there's large expanse of sky. so you could use a grad and not have too much worry about it being skew of any foreground object cutting the fade... but do you want that much fade?
The sun, is aprox 1/3 the frame in from the right, suggesting you have deliberately or inadvertently tried to follow the 'Rule of Thirds' for classic competition..... but, that sun still be bright, you could move it out of frame, and get a tighter tonal range in the remainder...
But the main feature of the shot is the sun filtering through the raggy clouds... take the sun away completely you are probably chucking baby out with the bath-water.
To get what you suggest,. as in the scary sea and the soft sunlight... personally, 1) I would get down a lot lower, and get more of that moody beach foreground into the frame. 2) I would probably risk the grey-grad... (I have used a pair of grad-tint sun-spex on the compact on the beach before now!), to hold back the sky, a-n-d I would be tempted to back that with a polarise to hold back everything and saturate the blue, 'maybe' take out some glare and reflections from the water. 3) I would have to make a choice on exposure and whether the sky or beach was the more important... I would probably bias the beach, and try lighten that up as a fair bit, and getting low, catch some shadow to emphasis the texture in the breakers and beach pebbles.
It's one of those situations you could shoot and re-shoot in so many different ways to get so many different interpretations of what is essentially a very simple composition. but that's where the tricks lie..
But... differences are not to be found in post-process but getting as much as you can CinC at the point of capture.... the 'niggle' being that bright sun and shadowed foreground and a range of brigness thats too much for your sensor or for film, and in all likelihood even the human eye.. on that, as you look out over the sea, you will likely shade your eyes from the bright sun, to see 'beach'; messing with filters or HDR you are doing much the same as your brain, that's merging the two pictures it sees, one of the foreground and one of the brighter sky, into a single image it can interpret.... only here you are doing the interpretation for an audience who will look at your photo, not the real scene.
Ie the camera is capturing a reality that you do not 'see' and you are trying to present something that is an altered reality 'like' you see it, not necessarily whats really there, THis is photography.. the misalignment of reality and perception and playing with the possibilities in that margin....
- Messages
- 929
- Name
- Maarten
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Applying the following settings in Lightroom:
You get this:
But ultimately it's up to you to edit in such a way that you achieve the effect you want.
You get this:
But ultimately it's up to you to edit in such a way that you achieve the effect you want.
West Camera
Can I be Frank?
- Messages
- 168
- Name
- frank west
- Edit My Images
- No
I like the photo's composition. Works well, I think. It is important to remember that editing is a very important skill of photography. Your remarks about your difficulty in editing speak to that. Your skill only allows you to edit globally - meaning the entire photo. Learn to edit in sections with masks, layers, etc. Things will come out more to your liking, then.
I'll have to practice more. I really love to take pictures of the places i go to but with my current skill i can't seem to quite capture the image that I want, much as to edit it to make it so. Thank you everyone and i hope you can criticise my other photos, too next time.