Beginner Choosing Images...

Lauraloo83

Lauraloo83

Messages
213
Name
Laura
Edit My Images
Yes
Ok so I am two weeks into to this beginner photography malarkey, genuinely I cannot believe I didn't have the confidence to start this years ago I love taking photos and the thought that one day I could be a good photographer makes me feel excited. Obviously I have a huuuuuuge journey to travel and I am practising as much as I can with the balance of life, which everyone will have to deal with.

Each time I find a subject I am taking repeated images to see what exposure set up looks best, how on earth do I choose images? Ive uploaded 82 images from last night and that was after deleting 30. Is this just something that will come with time?

Thanks
Laura x
 
I always used to struggle with this, but i soon realised that after following a few other photographers who uploaded dozens of shots of the same subject, i quickly got bored after 3-4 shots of the same subject

The way i solved it was to take part in a 365 photo project (take and upload 1 photo per day), this soon got me into the habit of selecting only the best image from that particular day

I appreciate this might not be the solution for you, but i always aim to get around half a dozen shots at most from the majority of my outings, the few times i break this rule is either visiting zoos/wildlife parks or airshows, but mostly i try to keep around 5-6 shots from each session
 
Oh wow really? I've no idea how I will ever be able to take so few, perhaps I should do the same 365 project to teach the same form of discipline. Thank you :)
 
at the moment I think you are very much in the spray and pray phase of your journey. This is not a bad thing. You will learn your style, eventually you will get to a point where you will look for the shot before lifting the camera to your eye.

you are experimenting with settings which is great. You will learn what settings give you a certain effect. When you see the picture you want to take you will be able to dial in the settings to achieve it. Its all good fun learning.

dont worry about the number of images, you take or have to sort through. Its finding the one you like, not what you think others will like. Share it on here or elsewhere. Ask for peoples opinions and most of all respect those opinions. They may have done it a different way but we are all different.
 
View attachment 42768 View attachment 42769 The agenda I gave myself last night was 1). to capture the golden hour and 2). to take dinosaur pictures to put in my childrens bedroom. Here are two of which I have done, this is the first time I captured the golden hour last night and it was beautiful :) x
 
I like those. I guess these are for your sons' bedrooms from the added text? I'm sure they'll love them.

One thing to consider is where the light is coming from. In both shots a lot of the subject is in shadow, changing the angle of the subject and/or the position you took the picture from (whilst still considering the whole image composition, including the background) you could have got more light on the subject. The dinosaurs are a little bit dark.

If you're going to add a border, it's worth getting the same thickness on all the edges too, or sometimes people use a thicker bottom border and add text there.

Just a couple of things to consider, hope you continue enjoying your photography journey.

Ps my son's called Finley!
 
Lauraloo83 said:
Each time I find a subject I am taking repeated images to see what exposure set up looks best,
Click to expand...

Why not practice using your camera's light meter, so you can get every image perfectly exposed every time. You'll find you can work better, and work very quickly, and allow you to get the shots you want. There's nothing wrong with taking many images because you're shooting something hard to control, fast action, or just experimenting with poses etc, but you shouldn't need to shoot multiple shots just to get exposure right.


A good example was Thursday for me. I've been working on a documentary project on mermaids for some time now, but also needed some very straight forward, centre framed dead-pan style portraits to balance out a gallery display, so I've been shooting those over the past couple of weeks. One of the mermaids literally could only spare one hour though, and was on a really tight schedule.... still.. no problem... an hour is a long time. However... we got to the location, and the heavens opened. We sheltered from the rain, while the sitter kept glancing at her watch, until finally she said that she had to go... just as we were walking back to the tube station, there was a break in the clouds. I quickly set up the flash, metered, and took the shot. I knew how and where I wanted her... so all I had to do was make sure exposure and framing was as I wanted it.

One shot... mere seconds.... done. If I had to keep taking shots in order to get my exposure right, it would have pushed her patience right out of the window. She was already running late, and it was starting to rain again. Not the ideal outcome, and wasn't the chosen location, but the portrait will suffice and works well with the others. The point is though... I had one chance, needed one image, and only actually took one image and that one image absolutely had to be correct.

View attachment 43900

Practice your exposure technique.
 
Last edited:
Nailing exposure in the camera is a good idea. As is finding out which exposures work best in which conditions. But these days camera metering systems are pretty excellent as a starting point. Also post processing using, say, Lightroom will allow you to pull quite a lot of extra details out of shadow areas. Adobe offer a free trial of Lightroom if you're interested.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Why not practice using your camera's light meter, so you can get every image perfectly exposed every time. You'll find you can work better, and work very quickly, and allow you to get the shots you want. There's nothing wrong with taking many images because you're shooting something hard to control, fast action, or just experimenting with poses etc, but you shouldn't need to shoot multiple shots just to get exposure right.


A good example was Thursday for me. I've been working on a documentary project on mermaids for some time now, but also needed some very straight forward, centre framed dead-pan style portraits to balance out a gallery display, so I've been shooting those over the past couple of weeks. One of the mermaids literally could only spare one hour though, and was on a really tight schedule.... still.. no problem... an hour is a long time. However... we got to the location, and the heavens opened. We sheltered from the rain, while the sitter kept glancing at her watch, until finally she said that she had to go... just as we were walking back to the tube station, there was a break in the clouds. I quickly set up the flash, metered, and took the shot. I knew how and where I wanted her... so all I had to do was make sure exposure and framing was as I wanted it.

One shot... mere seconds.... done. If I had to keep taking shots in order to get my exposure right, it would have pushed her patience right out of the window. She was already running late, and it was starting to rain again. Not the ideal outcome, and wasn't the chosen location, but the portrait will suffice and works well with the others. The point is though... I had one chance, needed one image, and only actually took one image and that one image absolutely had to be correct.

View attachment 43900

Practice your exposure technique.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for your help! For some reason I had it in my head that a slight over exposure would make a far more beautiful image. All those natural light photographs make me swoon, I guess what I need is to find how they are created.

This image you created is lovely!!!

I'm going to make sure my light meter is as close to bang on as possible thank you :)
 
Deadhead said:
Nailing exposure in the camera is a good idea. As is finding out which exposures work best in which conditions. But these days camera metering systems are pretty excellent as a starting point. Also post processing using, say, Lightroom will allow you to pull quite a lot of extra details out of shadow areas. Adobe offer a free trial of Lightroom if you're interested.
Click to expand...

Thank you I actually signed up to light room but I just felt that it was all too overwhelming so I've decided not to touch it until I'm confident with my photography or my head may blow up [emoji16][emoji16][emoji12]
 
Lauraloo83 said:
Thank you I actually signed up to light room but I just felt that it was all too overwhelming so I've decided not to touch it until I'm confident with my photography or my head may blow up [emoji16][emoji16][emoji12]
Click to expand...

Good point. It is a bit scary at first. Or even quite a lot later actually.
 
Lauraloo83 said:
Thanks so much for your help! For some reason I had it in my head that a slight over exposure would make a far more beautiful image. All those natural light photographs make me swoon, I guess what I need is to find how they are created.

This image you created is lovely!!!

I'm going to make sure my light meter is as close to bang on as possible thank you :)
Click to expand...
That's a misunderstanding of 'over exposed' and 'correct exposure'.

Whilst 'correct exposure' is down to personal taste, so there'll be times when 'correct' isn't what you want. You have to also understand that your camera meter (whilst it's really clever) has no idea what your subject is, and it's aim is to give you an average exposure. So if you point your camera at a white wall, a grey wall and a black wall in reasonable even light, and you follow the meter or set the camera to auto, you'll get 3 grey walls.

So to get a 'correct' exposure, you'll have to use your brain to override the camera meter. That can be complicated to some people but it's purely technical, there's a number of ways to do it, and it's not a big problem.

The next step though? Is that you're a photographer, and sometimes you might want to show the black wall as grey, or the grey wall as white, ore the white wall as black. That's not 'correct' but it's what we do sometimes, it's the same techniques, sometimes adding carefully aimed light sources, but we can do any of that.
 
Phil V said:
That's a misunderstanding of 'over exposed' and 'correct exposure'.

Whilst 'correct exposure' is down to personal taste, so there'll be times when 'correct' isn't what you want. You have to also understand that your camera meter (whilst it's really clever) has no idea what your subject is, and it's aim is to give you an average exposure. So if you point your camera at a white wall, a grey wall and a black wall in reasonable even light, and you follow the meter or set the camera to auto, you'll get 3 grey walls.

So to get a 'correct' exposure, you'll have to use your brain to override the camera meter. That can be complicated to some people but it's purely technical, there's a number of ways to do it, and it's not a big problem.

The next step though? Is that you're a photographer, and sometimes you might want to show the black wall as grey, or the grey wall as white, ore the white wall as black. That's not 'correct' but it's what we do sometimes, it's the same techniques, sometimes adding carefully aimed light sources, but we can do any of that.
Click to expand...
Oh wow thanks Phil, that makes total sense! In the four weeks I've actually took photography seriously and owned a dslr I think I've come so far and I feel really excited for the future. Everyone's advice is always taken on board and I'm just going to experiment more and more and hopeful one day the technical aspects will become second nature and I can create the creative images I want with ease...

I hope I will get my head round the processing after too but that seems too far away right now to think about it seriously.

I'm so pleased I found the forum, I can't tell you how much it's helped me and the fact that some amazing photographers have actually taken the time to advise little old me is just so flattering. Thank you everyone :)
 
I don't know if it helps, but I daylight, (A) Aperture Mode is very helpful, or a little more technical, (M) Manual Mode and using the meter at the bottom of the viewfinder. My friend got me working with manual mode, and although it was initially a little complicated. I found that by looking through the viewfinder and adjusting the settings to the middle of the meter, I was getting perfect exposed images. I hope that helps a little . :)
 
Deadhead said:
Also post processing using, say, Lightroom will allow you to pull quite a lot of extra details out of shadow areas. Adobe offer a free trial of Lightroom if you're interested.
Click to expand...

Never advise beginners to rely on post production to correct errors in exposure. You can do it, but depending upon how out the exposure was, what you suggest will add noise to that shadow detail. Also, once highlights go to far, there's nothing you can do.

Always learn how the camera's meter works, and practice. Getting accurate exposure, all the time, is possible... it just takes practice.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Never advise beginners to rely on post production to correct errors in exposure. You can do it, but depending upon how out the exposure was, what you suggest will add noise to that shadow detail. Also, once highlights go to far, there's nothing you can do.

Always learn how the camera's meter works, and practice. Getting accurate exposure, all the time, is possible... it just takes practice.
Click to expand...

Good point. I suppose what I was trying to say is that there are other things to work on in addition to exposure - like composition, say. I just didn't express myself very clearly.
 
Deadhead said:
Good point. I suppose what I was trying to say is that there are other things to work on in addition to exposure - like composition, say. I just didn't express myself very clearly.
Click to expand...


Those are crucial to, but IMO step A is operating the camera properly with regard to exposure, then B, learning about lighting, and getting that nailed, as those two things are probably the most important, especially as she's using flash.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top