Critiques

banyanman (7716) 2009-08-10 6:02

This turned out quite well for a through-the-aircraft-window shot, Chris. I guess you must have had the light behind you because the colour saturation is quite strong. During the day many of these aerial shots would look quite washed out. Good there were no clouds in the foreground too. Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-08-10 5:57

Wow, this has impact, Hisashi-san. Real travel poster material. You have composed this perfectly leaving just the right amount of headroom over the cloudscape to give it the right balance. Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-04-04 3:15

I like this better than the original, Steven, even though some might feel it is over-saturated. The blue hour at Shwedagon really can look like this. I have a similar shot taken at the blue hour when I was still using film, and it is one of my all-time favourite photos. Shwedagon is one of my favourite places too - I have spent hours there just watching the people go about their worship. Excellent technical quality. I must go back there one day with my digital camera. Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-04-04 3:08

Yes you are right, Jamie, there's not much going on in this photo, but the light is superb and that more than makes up for the lack of an exciting subject. It is nevertheless a very well composed photograph and excellent light management and use of the ND filter. Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-04-04 3:00

I don't see anything wrong with the quality of this shot, Carlos. Although it is posed, and 'ordinary' in terms of its composition, the lovely smiles of the two kids on the left carry it. (I would have been tempted to crop out the boy on the right - although some might think that would be unkind, I think your photograph would have had more impact without him). Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-04-04 2:52

Wow, this is quite spectacular, Didier - a three hours exposure . . . amazing! I've never tried any astronomical photography - I guess (as alluded to in your note) you need special equipment like a tracking mechanism to achieve such clarity and definition. I suppose too you can only do it from a part of the world where there is not too much air pollution.

Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-04-04 2:40

Hi Indranil. This shot captures the atmosphere of this lakeside town very nicely, and I like the reflections of the boat in the water. Yes, the over-exposure on the white buildings is a bit distracting. I usually bracket my shots in bright light like this to give me the option to do some work on the image in PP. In this situation using curves (or even the more basic shadow/highlights tool) on selected parts of the image could have overcome the exposure problems here (and even helped to bring out a little more detail of the passengers in the boat). Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-01-31 9:15

Yes the colour looks much better in this repost, Yves. The DOF is great and the contrast gives it a lot of visual impact. The only thing that disturbs me is that it feels tilted to the left - but that could be just the lie of the land (the volcanoes don't look tilted). Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-01-31 9:01

An excellent illustration to your informative note, Rui. Well composed and presented. Your little W300 produces some pretty good pics for its size! Cheers . . . David

banyanman (7716) 2009-01-31 8:57

There seems to be a lot of noise in this image, Manuel, to the point where the sky is hard to differentiate from the ocean, but actually I don't mind that because it makes this photograph look like a painting. If I had been shooting this, I would probably have cropped it just above the LH palm tree, but again I don't mind the square format that you have presented us with here because it adds to that 'painting' look (painters never seem to worry about the thirds rule!) Cheers . . . David