Beginner Birmingham

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YP1

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Name
Helen
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Hello, I'm new here so be gentle! I've had a DSLR for 6 weeks or so now and while I've been reading loads on here I haven't been brave enough to post yet.

I had a work trip to Birmingham during the week and took my camera down with me - I ended up having much less free time than I hoped for (pretty much all in the dark - I got out at about 6.30pm and then again at dawn the next morning) and the weather was pretty grim (wind and rain) but I got a couple of shots that I thought I'd share.


Brindleyplace dawn by helen_goldthorpe, on Flickr

Library at night by helen_goldthorpe, on Flickr

A city of contrasts by helen_goldthorpe, on Flickr

Hurry through the rain by helen_goldthorpe, on Flickr

Library B&W by helen_goldthorpe, on Flickr
 
For me, your best images in this set would be the library shot - i like that a lot, very good and the last shot in B&W.

The 2nd image is really interesting as well, would like to see it in the daytime just to compare :)


Note on the last B&W, there's a huge lens flare to the right of the tree, almost looks like a crescent moon.

Looking at the settings on your camera, I presume you done these hand-held? Get a tripod, that last image would be so much sharper than shooting at F3.5, although is getting more light in, you really need to be shooting at about F8-F11 to get lots of detail in, thats where the tripod comes in handy, 1 or 2 seconds would get you the same exposure but it would be crispy clean image. (except for the flare, that would probably be more prominent).

Hope that helps - Tripod and when shooting landscape or architecture, have a high F-stop (closed aperture) of F8 to F11. Pointless going up to F16 or beyond as you might not want <that> much detail in the background showing, you want it to reflect how you "see" it, but that is up to you, its YOUR photography. Happy shooting and I look forward to seeing more of your work - you have a good eye :)
 
Thanks! I had spotted the lens flare but liked the composition enough to "overlook" it for now. You're right that they are mainly handheld - the first was actually on a tripod with a 10 second exposure (i think) but I didn't set it up for the others. That was partly because of time - I just wanted to play around with different composition and a variety of shots rather than spending all the time I had getting one of them as good as I could. Plus my tripod is a cheap mini thing which basically involves sitting on the floor to operate the camera which wasn't appealing in wind and rain! Something taller and more useable is the next thing on the shopping list I think.

The good eye comment amuses me - my father and grandfather have always been keen photographers and used to say that about my photos but I've never used anything much more complicated than a point and shoot (or occasionally 35mm film with them telling me what to do many years ago) so the more technical side is all new to me.
 
I like the last B&W shot of the library. May I suggest a tweak using the vertical transform to bring the lines in more parallel?

For example:
View attachment 5539
 
I like that. Is that something you can do in lightroom or would I need photo shop? At the moment I don't have either and trying to work out what will work best for me before spending money!
 
YP1 said:
I like that. Is that something you can do in lightroom or would I need photo shop? At the moment I don't have either and trying to work out what will work best for me before spending money!
Click to expand...
You can do it in both. I imagine you can do it in most decent free software too such as GIMP.
 
Very good set, the new library in Birmingham is quite impressive day or night.......:)
 
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