Beginner Cornish Rocks Set

SeanT

SeanT

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Name
Sean
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Hi all,
Recently decided to take my photography a bit more seriously, and getting excited about night shooting and long exposures. These were done with a very cheap ND3.0 (so cheap it's not actually 3.0...), and a very cheap tripod. I'm pleasantly surprised by the results, but would like to hear what you guys think.

#1


untitled-0439.jpg by Sean Taylor, on Flickr

#2


untitled-0453.jpg by Sean Taylor, on Flickr

#3


untitled-0456.jpg by Sean Taylor, on Flickr

#4


untitled-0465.jpg by Sean Taylor, on Flickr

#5


untitled-0478.jpg by Sean Taylor, on Flickr

Thanks for looking! :)

Sean
 
You say beginner but these are an accomplished set of photos. Keep doing what you're doing!
 
I think that very cheap ND filter is giving a colour cast, a nice set and composition is good, spoilt (imo) by the colour cast

Robin
 
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phodru said:
You say beginner but these are an accomplished set of photos. Keep doing what you're doing!
Click to expand...
…Sean surely means he is like me: a beginner to TP.

robinchun said:
I think that very cheap ND filter is giving a colour cast, a nice set and composition is good, spoilt (imo) by the colour cast.
Click to expand...
Technically, you are absolutely right!
As for the artistic intent, the treatment regularity between the shot,s and Sean's apparent
skills level, lead me to believe that this may pretty well be a chosen option, quite legitimate
thought, like you, I wound have chosen otherwise.
 
Agree with the above comments. The filter cast is not helping these, plus I would also be aware of the Chromatic Aberration, which can be seen on the hills in 4 and 5 and dust spots.
You've selected a good shutter speed for these, which I like, but I think you are perhaps damaging the shots by shooting at f22. Ordinarily, I wouldnt recommend an aperture value for a crop sensor camera particularly.
Wait for the light to be at a lower level, and aim for f11-f16 perhaps.
Thoughtful compositions throughout though, i particularly like the movement of the water in the first shot
 
a really good set i think - for me, the cast isn't toooo much of a problem. I like that there is just the right amount of movement in the water too (y)

just clone out that dust bunny top left
 
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Echoing the above comments really, A nice set overall, just need a little more correction here and there (as noted above).

I particularly like No4 then No1. Number 4, I really like the miniature waterfall created by the spray running back into the sea from that rock in the foreground and the contrast between the green on the headland and the rock and sea, and you can almost feel the heave in the water and the undertow as that first wave starts to head in. The Aberration is without doubt the 28-300 screwed down to 28mil a suicidal combination as far as chromatic aberration goes (most zooms exhibit this issue particularly at the wide end).
No1 has some lovely movement in the water, with lovely eddies and swirls, but the houses look a little laid back with that focal length of 11 mil and it looks like it needs a tweak CW.

Buying a cheap ND filter isn't a cardinal sin if you accept that it may have limitations (and I say may because I have a 10 stop ND that exhibits very little cast and is comparable to my Lee) But you need to think about correcting any colour cast it creates.
 
As a beginner myself, could someone just briefly (nothing too technical as this isn't really the right place) explain what colour cast is.
 
Hi Dominic, first of all welcome and sorry also welcome to @SeanT !
This is a great forum for learning. A colour cast is basically an unwanted tint that runs through the whole image uniformly. It will be more noticeable in some parts of the image than others depending on what colour cast it is and the image itself. So for example if you have a picture of a nice blue sky with white fluffy clouds if you have a blue colour cast it will be very noticeable in the white clouds they will look blue instead of pure white. It's a bit like if you have the wrong white balance. To see the effect take an image in your editing software and alter the white balance and see the colour change over the complete image. That's it in a nutshell, it's generally caused by filters fitted to the front of the lens. They can induce an unwanted colour cast of various different colours. Cheap filters are notorious for it.
Hope this helps
 
Thet are a very good start and fall into the shutter speed range that I really like especially when shooting the sea.

You could do with learning to sort the colour cast. You need to be careful of spray on the lens/filter for such shots and if it is an issue keep cleaning the filter.

If you intend to shoot at the beach a lot I would not buy the best tripod as it may be ruined I bought a good quality sturdy model at a low price and my carbon fibre tripod was rusting was rusting away at the fixing so clean you gear after a trip the sea on a day like this.
 
Thank you all for your kind replies.
Phodru - thanks!
Robin, yep, the ND is definitely responsible for the cast - it was very, very cheap. I bought it along with a very, very cheap interval timer to experiment with long exp - I was already lucky enough to own the very, very cheap tripod! The idea was to do some trial shots, and invest in better kit if I liked the results.
Kodiac, no, I'm just an ordinary beginner - I know my way around the camera, but have never done 'proper' tripod mounted, remote fired, landscape pics, or done more editing than a bit of a crop and exposure adjust. Keeping the colour cast was not a deliberate decision - I hadn't even noticed it until the whole set was done. Ahem...
Matty, thanks for pointing out the CA - which I also missed until you mention it, then it stands out like a sore thumb. The small aperture was an attempt to lengthen exposure - due to the very cheap ND not being all the ND advertised! Come to think of it, that's also probably responsible for the softness? I thought that might be the tripod, it being very light and not weighed down, in what were quite breezy conditions.
Damian - dust bunnies - yep. How do I miss this stuff?
Steve - again, yep with the CA, which I had missed. Regarding slanty houses, how do I correct that? What's CW? (Lightroom, btw.)
Alf - thanks, point taken. I guess a rinse down with fresh water is in order, to get the salt off. Not bothered about the current tripod, I think I'll be acquiring a new one shortly.

So, what now? If I apply the edits and re-upload to flickr, I assume the edits will transfer to the original post, and the sense in the thread will be lost. Does that matter?

Thanks for your constructive replies, anyway - I'll off and take another look at the images...

Sean
 
Phew that was a big chunk learning wasn't it;) Just goes to show what you can get out of posting a few photos!
Sorry for the abbreviation :rolleyes: It simply means clockwise the shot is a tad off level, so just needs rotating slightly clockwise. As for slanty house syndrome go to develop module in Lightroom scroll down the toolbar right to the bottom to 'lens correction' in LR 5 you'll see in the basic setting checkbox for enable lens correction and CA! In the next tab along you'll find all the lens profiles you can select, these will probably do most of the work for you. Or you have the options to do it manually if you prefer or the lens profile doesn't sort it.
Cheers
Steve
Oh yes PS
If you edit the originals and upload to Flickr chances are you will need to relink to the new images on Flickr.
Or just post the new edited version in the thread
 
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Thanks Steve, I'll take a look at them over the next couple of days.

Sean
 
I suggest not replacing them on Flickr just post the edits
You would need to repost the BB code anyway and the thread would not make sense and people will be able to see the difference.
 
That's a great start for a beginner. Yes there's a colour cast, but you can probably tidy that with some white balance adjustment. Chromatic aberration is again probably from the filter. Something else I'd frown upon is the slanty houses in the first image, this is because you're pointing your camera downwards, rather than keeping level.

Despite all those little technical issues, that can easily be learnt and avoided, your composition is fantastic (you definitely have a good eye) and that in my opinion is all that really matters! The rest will come together in due course. No point having a technically perfectly picture if you can't create an interesting composition.
 
Ah, slanty houses from pointing the camera down? TBH, I don't remember, but it's quite possible, in order to get the foreground in. Anyway, the lens profile didn't fix it, so somethings going on - tried to correct manually, but it's too extreme. We'll be living with that one, then... :)
 
Its an easy trap to fall into and we all do it at one time or another and sometimes of course it cant be avoided, as Tannachy says. If you get to a point where you cant fix it in LR then its off to Photoshop to do some more heavy weight correction. There are various ways to do this depending on the different versions of Photoshop.
 
69Bonni said:
...off to Photoshop to do some more heavy weight correction...
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Oh, no, we'll not be doing that - the pics are all trials anyway, and with the advent of CC I'm looking for another editing solution. I don't need PS often enough just now to justify a subscription. Granted, this might change, but I'm feeling my way just now...
 
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