The Reason I Haven't Been Writing Much Recently (Photography Content)

02Pilot said:

I will offer only two tidbits of advice, neither of which is related to gear, and which are worth exactly what you paid for them:

1) Think about what you want from a photograph before you take it. If you can't figure out what you want, or you don't know how to make it happen, don't take the photo. Pre-visualization is an incredibly important skill to develop if you want to advance your photography.

2) Always remember that a boring photo that is incredibly sharp, perfectly exposed, and technically brilliant is still exactly that: a boring photo.

I fully agree! Boring is always boring, no matter how technically good it is.

(Also, I've finally found a screenname to stick with, at least until the next car.)

Yup, RAW with proper editing software is a lot better.

Before:

After (this is the compressed JPG):

gradient tool would be good there... would help the snow stay white...

edit:
or, are you in your blue phase?

I know how it goes for not getting out and shooting. I just dont seem to get the camera out in the winter for much and the last time was for some xmas lights that i took. i use it every week in the summer for sure for racing season. 

Juts have fun shooting is the big thing and i shoot jpeg myself and use pisscaia which is a free download for editing.

pres589 said:

The only suggestion I'd make to change the above post is to find the version of the Tamron 17-50 that is pre-VC; lighter, cheaper, smaller, and better image quality.  My sister uses that lens on her Canon and the results are fantastic.  I always suggest that lens to people.  

 

Thanks for the heads up!

So, where are you guys going for decent online critique of your photography?  What forums or social media groups have you found actually give you good feedback?

I have gotten feedback when asked for on Pentaxforums.com and they do accept people using non-Pentax gear.  That said, if I didn't use a Pentax camera, I doubt I would be active on that forum.  

Curious what others here are doing for this sort of thing.

Matt B said:

So, where are you guys going for decent online critique of your photography?  What forums or social media groups have you found actually give you good feedback?

I've tried a few places and they have been mostly disappointing. Online is too focused on gear and useless details like pixel peeping. Add to that fragile egos and pompous blowhards and it all goes to E36 M3 fairly quickly. I attend a photography salon where people show prints and discuss them - this provides useful, interactive criticism, something web forums do not tend to do well.

Seconding O2 Pilot.  See if there is a Meetup photography group in your area, and keep an eye out for local tags on instagram.  You will do better if you find someone with similar interests on photo subject as well.  Pressing a like button isn't much in the way of constructive feedback, but it's all most people a going to do for you online.

In reply to pres589 :

Funny you should mention Pentaxforums.com - they keep showing up in my search results when I'm in research mode for decidedly non-Pentax related things.  I'll give it a harder look. 

In reply to 02Pilot & travellering :

Yeah that's been my cursory observation as well, but I've only spent a little time on a couple of forums with a creative slant.  Most social platforms are geared around the short-attention-span theater of likes/upvotes/whatever so that's not a huge surprise.  That said, I figured there had to be somewhere with a decent signal-to-noise ratio.  Also, agreed that meetup groups can be awesome.  I've had great luck with my professional groups, but I haven't tried the photography stuff yet.

seems like we have a sizeable group here that has an interest in it, dunno if it's "critical mass" sized, but... maybe we need to start a "critical photography critique" thread?

I think, though, we'd need to hammer out some ground-rules for it ahead of time... beyond the board-level ones

I'd be down for that. As a hobby photographer who never thought I was good enough to paid (despite many people wanting to pay me), I'm pretty critical of people who do get paid. 

Lately I've been in awe of some of the pictures on Instagram. Like this one I saw this morning:

I can tell you what works at the photography salon I attend. When presenting work, the photographer first explains what they're showing and what sort of critique they are interested in. For example, at the last one I went to I showed about 25 prints that I was considering for submission to a competition. I needed to get it narrowed down to between six and ten. The discussion that followed was on the merits of the photos individually and as groups, but the focus always remained on the objective I set in the beginning.

If people just post photos and say "What do you think?" too often critical or negative comments are either withheld, or if they are included, taken badly by the person who posted their work. Some sort narrowing of purpose is necessary if a critique thread is going to work, IMO.

Yeah I'd definitely be down for a group here.  Also, 02Pilot has the right idea.  Some context helps everyone understand how to best provide appropriate feedback.

If anybody is interested in posting or discussing, I started that critique thread here.

Matt B said:

If anybody is interested in posting or discussing, I started that critique thread here.

relatedly:
Casual Six... if you have any problems with my editing your photo... please let me know.  I'll send you what I did and pull down the one I have on Imgur (I've already deleted the local copies, and have no plans for reuse).

sleepyhead said:

Matt B said:

If anybody is interested in posting or discussing, I started that critique thread here.

relatedly:
Casual Six... if you have any problems with my editing your photo... please let me know.  I'll send you what I did and pull down the one I have on Imgur (I've already deleted the local copies, and have no plans for reuse).

Feel free to keep it up! It looks awesome and you did a much better job than I did.

well, the only reason is because I've already royally botched the job in the past...

if I had started from RAW, I'd actually approach the edit differently... setting the image color/exposure based on the snow/car, and then dropping the gradient on the sky.  Doing that kind of shot is really rewarded by slowing down, dropping into manual mode and then splitting the difference between the light-metered sky and subject... maybe biased 2/3's of a stop towards the darkness (the process of doing that being aided by "back button focus", imho).

plus there's the idea that you could balance things with either a actual gradient filter... and adding in flash.  Although, I reckon you're a bit far for the onboard flash to do much good there.  Lots of ways to skin that image concept.
 

BonnieSnyder said:

I'm delighted with your photo, it looks like you are a professional! Usually, I use my phone, but would like to have a professional camera! Anyone can advise (link removed) Are these good tips for beginners?

I dunno... they don't cover cameras for canoeing trips... so it's hard to tell if there's good info there.

Canoe removed, carrry on. 

It seems like the fixthephoto.com article skipped Pentax entirely, which is the brand I shoot with for a few different reasons.  That said, I can't fault someone for going with Canon or Nikon really, all systems have their plusses and minuses.  

I will say that one thing that really got me to better understand photography and how to use my camera was to read about the functions and features of the camera I own, and then getting an old, manual focus lens, that doesn't allow for the camera body to control the aperture.  I had to do everything or else I got garbage pictures.  I came to take pictures I was rather happy with and actually would share with others with my camera and the lens I got out of the bottom of a box in the back of a camera shop store room for $30 (and I probably overpaid by $15...).  

EDIT:  Owned by canoe?  Whatever, leaving my post.

Hey pres, you mind editing your post to remove the link?

I'll respond more thoroughly when I'm off phone.data

pres589 said:

It seems like the {link removed} article skipped Pentax entirely, which is the brand I shoot with for a few different reasons.  That said, I can't fault someone for going with Canon or Nikon really, all systems have their plusses and minuses.  

 

I will say that one thing that really got me to better understand photography and how to use my camera was to read about the functions and features of the camera I own, and then getting an old, manual focus lens, that doesn't allow for the camera body to control the aperture.  I had to do everything or else I got garbage pictures.  I came to take pictures I was rather happy with and actually would share with others with my camera and the lens I got out of the bottom of a box in the back of a camera shop store room for $30 (and I probably overpaid by $15...).  

 

EDIT:  Owned by canoe?  Whatever, leaving my post.

Just curious... this was a Pentax DSLR that you got out of the bottom of a box?  or a Pentax Film camera?  What's you Pentax lens setup.

(I shot some Pentax film cameras in High School / early College that I... er... loaned from my Dad)