Commons:Photography critiques/April 2017

Sumatran Tiger

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering what people think about this image. How can it be improved, I'd love to see it at QI (or VI) level. Thanks for any advice you can give! -- Jjm596 (talk) 18:46, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I am not a expert on photography (just learning) but hope you find my coments helpful, the reflections over tiger head and body are unpleasant, the dark framework seems to be more relevant in the photo than the tiger as it is in a central position its contrast and sharpness are better than the tiger, so it is very distracting from the main subject.

Regards --Cvmontuy (talk) 14:19, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, I've cropped it and hopefully the focus is more on the tiger now. Shame about the reflections, though. --Jjm596 (talk) 16:55, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

To me the side of his face near the window looks darker than the side away from the window. PumpkinSky talk 18:15, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that is because the 'viewing area' i.e. where the photo was taken from, is partially indoors--Jjm596 (talk) 19:43, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

•  Comment In addition to the unfortunate frame on the left and the distracting reflections on the right, there is a green colour cast to the image (probably due to the glass or automatic white balance of the camera) which does the orange subject a disservice. dllu (t,c) 18:59, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I will see what I can do about the green tint. Can I ask please, which do you think is the better of the these; the current version as seen here, or this one (which at least blocks out the left frame). Or perhaps even the original image? Thanks--Jjm596 (talk) 19:46, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Airport hall in Mexico

This is a QI but can be a FP?

--Cvmontuy (talk) 14:00, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it's a bit of a problem that the leading lines guide the eye to the center of the image, but that part is not really in focus, as far as I can tell. Or you used a very small aperture and that's why it is not very sharp overall, I can't tell because the EXIF seems to be a little jumbled. The exposure time definitely suggests a small aperture. So maybe focus stacking would have helped. In general, I would set the quality bar pretty high for the photo because the subject is not that unusual or exciting in and of itself. In my opinion. — Julian H.^✈ 15:19, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your comment, today I have learned a couple of things, the Tokina lens is manual so no feed back on aperture but it was small, regards --Cvmontuy (talk) 23:50, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Thai Game chicken

I'd appreciate input on how this could be better. As for the other chickens in the photo, they were all moving around a lot and this was the by far the best shot that I got. Thank you. PumpkinSky talk 09:37, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

•  Comment I think the photo can be improved by leaving more space in front of the chicken than behind. See: en:Lead room. Also, the photo seems a bit dark. dllu (t,c) 21:43, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Thank you. Note I think the sharpness of the feathers is pretty good, especially the upper ones. PumpkinSky talk 22:44, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Hey PumpkinSky, nice work here. The focus and sharpness are good, which is always a tricky feat to accomplish when your subjects are darting around. One of the biggest considerations for me is always neatness around the edges of the frame and eliminating distracting elements that don't benefit the main subject. In that regard, I think the image could be improved by going for a square crop that gets rid of the unsharp, cropped-off chickens on the right. The tail feathers on the bottom-left are not ideal, but not quite as obtrusive IMO. This would improve the framing and allow for the suggestion of lead room. It's a large file, so you have lots of resolution to work with. Good to see you around, by the way - it's been quite a while! –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:01, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

• • • Hey, Juliancolton, nice to see you again too. Yea, I've been mostly inactive and I have this photo hobby now. That's mostly what I do on wiki these days. I got the camera a few weeks ago. So I'm a newbie at this, but I'm trying to get better. I don't do much on en wiki. I've cropped per suggestions as a newer version so you should now see the cropped version on this page. Let me know what you and dllu think. Cropping is about all I know how to do so far; I'm not near where I can do things like remove shadows, so if it needs that, feel free. If you think it'd make QI or something, let me know. Thanks folks. PumpkinSky talk 09:07, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Juliancolton, I went ahead and put it up at QIC, first one for 13 April. PumpkinSky talk 05:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

•  Comment Looks good to me. dllu (t,c) 08:41, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

QI nomination

I have 10 photos that i don´t know if they are worhty to a QI nomination. Any advice? Thanks. Vanbasten 23 (talk) 15:01, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

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@Vanbasten 23: IMHO, the best ones are Lläut y competición.jpg and Bakar, Croacia.jpg. Lläut bancadas.jpg suffers from all the people in the background; in Lläut tolete 03.jpg the bolt is blurry, and in Lläut vista.jpg the boat is chopped off and blurry in the front. PumpkinSky talk 21:00, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

@PumpkinSky: I really liked your opinion very much. Thank you very much for the contribution. ;) Vanbasten 23 (talk) 21:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Starting at zero

click to enlarge

newer and maybe improved version

I have uploaded this completely unprocessed image for input on what I can do with similar images to make them better and potentially FP or at least QI quality. I also want to learn how to make the best of what equipment and skill I have. I'm guessing this particular image is not ever going to be FP quality (even I think it's a bit boring), but it's here for me to learn from in terms of cropping, post-processing image enhancement, and what "operator errors" I made with the camera settings. I provided more info on the image, above and beyond the EXIF data, at File talk:Grazing Montana Horses.jpg and would welcome more in-depth discussion there, if it would be convenient. At present, my limitations are: 1) I'm not purchasing more lenses or another camera (for now--we'll see in 5 years...) 2) I don't have Photoshop and I really don't want to have to buy it. 3) My computer is a MacBook Pro laptop, so I don't know what, if anything can be done to help the monitor "pass" the calibration test because it's not (and it changes--some things better, some worse--if I tilt the screen, too... ). Any input is much appreciated. Montanabw (talk) 17:33, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

the picture is a little bit noisy, you can fix it using rawtherapee (http://rawtherapee.com) is free to download and use this is similar to ligthroom, another great tool is GIMP (https://www.gimp.org) similar to Photoshop but free to download and use, I use both on windows, but I understand that both have a mac version.--Cvmontuy (talk) 07:58, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

On the topic of free software, I also recommend darktable (http://www.darktable.org/), which is similar to lightroom. As for the photo, it looks good to me. In the future, I'd use f/8 for this type of photo for more depth of field to get both horses very sharp. I also agree with the crop suggestion... the bottom of the image is quite boring. dllu (t,c) 21:40, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the input everyone! This is helpful. Montanabw (talk) 06:41, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Can anyone comment on the adjustments I made to the image and tell me if I did it "right?" I cropped it from the original and did some simple color adjustments to brighten it up and make the colors look more real to my eye... but the eye of the beholder... Montanabw (talk) 02:48, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

File:Panorama of AT&T Park at night.jpg

Panorama of a baseball stadium in San Francisco.

I painstakingly took this panorama on a midnight photo walk on Sunday, equipped with an adapted manual 50mm f/2.6 lens. The panorama consists of 42 frames (3 exposures, 2 rows of 7 portrait frames). What do people think of the composition? Should I clone out the lens flares (they are real lens flares due to extremely bright floodlights), or should I reshoot this with my Zeiss lens with much better coatings and flare resistance? dllu (t,c) 09:14, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Dllu: nice one, it's obvious you put a lot of work into this! FPC candidate for me if you can get rid of the flares: Lens flare can of course be used as a stylistic device, but in this case I find those large blue blotches on the right pretty disturbing. They look like some kind of artefact and are not even easily recognized for what they are. Same for the purple spots, though I must admit that I find that large UFO-like one on the left kind of funny ;-). I like the composition, if anything the rocks in the foreground might be a tad too dominant (or maybe not, I didn't try cropping). "50mm f/2.6" sounds like a macro lens? Certainly delivers in terms of sharpness. The streaks are interesting, without the description I would have guessed for bats hunting for insects attracted to the floodlights. Cheers, --El Grafo (talk) 09:51, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks! I'll clone out the flares when I have time. The lens used was a Myutron FV5026W-F that is supposedly optimized for infinity focus and it is quite sharp. It's also useful for panoramas since it has very little distortion, no vignetting whatsoever, and has a set screw that can keep the aperture and focus ring fixed. Flaring is a severe drawback of this lens though, since it was designed for machine vision applications with controlled lighting. dllu (t,c) 20:50, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the lens flare, you can try one of the following when shooting: if the lens flare moves, try several photos pointing the camera in different directions. Take some photos and block the bright light source(s) shining onto your lens, with your hand or otherwise. -- KlausFoehl (talk) 12:54, 20 June 2017 (UTC)