Beginner New to Editing - critique me please!

I

iaminneedofhelp

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42
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi,
I'll share on here some of the best landscapes I've taken over a couple of months of travelling so far. Please critique me on ANYTHING - editing, composition, lighting etc.
Thanks!
IMG_1479270399.694993.jpgIMG_1479270524.857255.jpgIMG_1479270617.315007.jpgIMG_1479270809.818345.jpgIMG_1479270981.465531.jpg
Please ignore the spots in the last two - I need to clean my sensor and haven't got a computer to edit them out in Lightroom.
 
I'm no judge, just my personal opinions.
1.The power lines detract from the overall image.
If you could step to the right a bit you could use them as lead-in lines to the main image.
Alternatively, if you could move to the left you might be able to leave them out completely.

2.You could crop off at least half of the sky - it's not contributing anything to the image.
A bit more foreground detail might be nice as well.

3. Overall, a bit too dark, needs some detail in the distant hills and the water.
You could also crop off some of the water to put more emphasis on the sky.

4.Too much sky.
You could zoom in or crop to make the flamingos larger in the frame.

5. A bit too "busy."
I find my eyes wandering around the frame looking for a subject to rest on.
Might have been better if you had concentrated on capturing the reflections of the flying birds, and made the mountains a separate shot.
 
You need to straighten your images, use grid lines to help.

Pics 2, 3 and 4 have a definite slope.

The spot healing tool will eliminate your dust bunnies. (just noticed your comment at the end :) )

There seems to be an awful lot of softness going on - a bit of sharpness would help. I don't know if it's how they are presented or how you took them.

Just my opinion, but there doesn't seem to be a main subject, nothing for me to latch on to and hold my attention.

Sorry to be so negative, I'm trying to be helpful! :D

There's also no exif data on the pics. It would help to see what settings/camera/lens you used.

Did you go for the Sony A6000?
 
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Brian G: Thanks for your comments, will edit the photos a bit more and re-upload them. Cheers!


kendo1: Yeah Sony a6000 with the 16-50mm kit lens shooting at f16 most of the time (maybe the reason for the softness). I'm currently travelling like I said and so am uploading RAWs to my phone and editing in LR Mobile and exporting to Camera Roll - don't know why it doesn't maintain EXIF info... annoying.
If you've got an idea why my images are not as good quality/as sharp as you'd expect from my camera then I'd appreciate it so I can try to fix it for the future. (Oh and the app won't let me upload photos in their full resolution as well)
Haha negative is better anyway! I'll see what I can do about your suggestions.
 
iaminneedofhelp said:
Brian G: Thanks for your comments, will edit the photos a bit more and re-upload them. Cheers!


kendo1: Yeah Sony a6000 with the 16-50mm kit lens shooting at f16 most of the time (maybe the reason for the softness). I'm currently travelling like I said and so am uploading RAWs to my phone and editing in LR Mobile and exporting to Camera Roll - don't know why it doesn't maintain EXIF info... annoying.
If you've got an idea why my images are not as good quality/as sharp as you'd expect from my camera then I'd appreciate it so I can try to fix it for the future. (Oh and the app won't let me upload photos in their full resolution as well)
Haha negative is better anyway! I'll see what I can do about your suggestions.
Click to expand...
Like I said, I'm no judge, just my personal opinions.
Agreed about the lack of sharpness, but I thought there were other areas that could benefit from improvement first.
I have an A6000 and it produces very sharp images (although I use the Zeiss 16-70 lens, it didn't look much different to the Sony 18-55 on my NEX-5).
Why are you shooting at f16, and what ISO? You'd be better at f8 - f11 if the light is bright, use ISO 100.
Most of the time in the UK I use f5.6 - f8 and 200 ISO dropping to 100 ISO on those really bright days.
I process from raw with the full version of Lightroom.
I don't use LR Mobile but maybe the softness is in the resizing/exporting?
Again, the loss of EXIF may be due to the exporting, although I'm not sure how this forum treats directly uploaded images.
It seems you get a better IQ (and retain EXIF) if you can upload to flickr and then link to the forum.
 
iaminneedofhelp said:
Brian G: Thanks for your comments, will edit the photos a bit more and re-upload them. Cheers!


kendo1: Yeah Sony a6000 with the 16-50mm kit lens shooting at f16 most of the time (maybe the reason for the softness). I'm currently travelling like I said and so am uploading RAWs to my phone and editing in LR Mobile and exporting to Camera Roll - don't know why it doesn't maintain EXIF info... annoying.
If you've got an idea why my images are not as good quality/as sharp as you'd expect from my camera then I'd appreciate it so I can try to fix it for the future. (Oh and the app won't let me upload photos in their full resolution as well)
Haha negative is better anyway! I'll see what I can do about your suggestions.
Click to expand...


:)

No need for f16, f8 would probably do and more than likely be the best aperture for that lens.
Using f16 might be keeping the shutter speed too low.

There's no level indicator in the EVF with the A6000, unlike the Nex 6 which I have (and is very useful!), but there should be grid lines available.

Edit: I assume you are outside a vehicle when you took them?
 
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kendo1 said:
Edit: I assume you are outside a vehicle when you took them?
Click to expand...

You may have looked closely of the photo of the island? For that one, yes, I was on a boat. But for the rest I'm standing on dry land :)

I'll try to start shooting at f8 to f11 and see how it affects my images.

Here are some of the photos shown before uploaded to Flickr:
https://flic.kr/p/NE5L2Q
https://flic.kr/p/Nw9Gbu
https://flic.kr/p/Nw9wvh
https://flic.kr/p/Pe2MMm
https://flic.kr/p/PhoKyc

I edited a few of them a bit.
 
Ah. It's the app you've uploaded with. They look much better on Flickr. Nowt wrong with your lens or technique.

No reason not to use ISO 100 though. The light should be good enough to keep your shutter speed up at that ISO.
The panorama is looking good, and the native dancers. More subject matter.
 
I think I saw some Pringles.
 
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