Critique Welcomed Photos around Matlock

[David Mitchell]

Hi all,

I had another wander around Matlock this weekend, I was using my Nikon FM2n and my girlfriend was using my Nikon D3100 but I nabbed it a couple of times so that I could take a few shots without needing to wait for the film to be finished and processed.

I plan to take my Speed graphc 4x5 camera up there at some point as there are lots of nice shots along a walking route

Anyway, being new to all this I took a few shots and cropped them slightly to where I liked them, but im new to everything so I just need help on how I could make a shot better. I can then take this on board for the next shots.

I have corrected the white balance in LR as well as tweek a few settings - unfortunatly the sky wasn't very interesting yesterday lol

Here are a few shots that I liked most out of the ones I took:

This one I wasn't sure if I liked in colour of black and white, so here are both, its much simpler to tweek things in black and white vs colour lol

And this show I can't remember who took it but I like it so I thought I would also put it up

Comments good and bad are most welcome, its the only way im going to learn

 

[Pete Askew]

Overall, a nice set David. The selective focus works well on the first but you might like to look up rule of thirds to help you balance the elements in an image as I think you could probably have framed it more effectively - don't get tied to it though, but it's useful at times.

The second works better in B&W for me as it is mostly about texture and there is little colour detail. Your conversion is very nice but maybe a touch more contrast would add something extra. Again, increasing the contrast (and the saturation) a touch might give a touch more drama if that is what you want in the image.

The lines in the last work very well as you have not only got a good leading diagonal with the fence but the line of the path to where it joins the fence introduces a second and one which leads the eye into the scene.

 

[David Mitchell]

Thanks Pete im getting used to this new fangled colour photography, it''ll never catch on

I have converted that 2nd photo to black and white and tweeked the contrast, I guess this is coming back to the 'should I shoot colour' thread ie I have the option to keep it colour but also convert to black and white if I wanted.

Here is another image I found when going through other shots.

 

[Dave Moss]

Prefer the B&W shots

 

[David Mitchell]

Prefer the B&W shots

Indeed, I think on that day the sky wasn't very interesting and it was a bit overcast, perhaps in the summer when there are more interesting colours around I will take a few more. These are all shot on the basic D3100 with the 18-55 kit zoom lens, its also set on auto as my girlfriend hasn't got into the technicalities of the different aperture settings.

 

[Ahmad Bhai]

Luuuuvin it the drawing on the post ... brill to include humour with landscape .... would be a wonderful series.

 

[Dave Moss]

Cant help but think might even be interesting getting to that spot tomorrow!!

 

[David Mitchell]

Luuuuvin it the drawing on the post ... brill to include humour with landscape .... would be a wonderful series.

The way I was trying to get used to shooting was to basically pick out things that catch your eye, you know when you want past something and give it a double take.

I did take a photo of another bit but due to it being dark and the camera being set on auto at the time (girlfriend was using it) it didn't come out as I wanted it but i've salvaged what I can, I might just massivly bump up the saturation and give it a more comical look.

 

[David Mitchell]

Here are some comparison images (shot both on the DSLR and FM2n

D3100

FM2n

And in black and white

D3100

FM2n

Notes - both are tweeked to the best of my ability at the moment, FM2n used Agfa Vista plus ISO200 film (£1 from poundland) and was scratched by the photo shop.

 

[Pete Askew]

That is interesting David. My favourite is the colour FM2n shot by far. Lovely tones and detail.

 

[David Mitchell]

I will recheck all the setting/levels on both images, you can see the D3100 image is zoomed in slightly - was using the 18-55 kit lens. I will also try and crop the same part of the image, I think 1 was taken a bit further along the path, but at the same hill lol. The FM2n scan was at the normal 2400 dpi for 35mm film so not max resolution it could have done. I will see what I can do with the colours from the D3100 - I am getting better at black and white tweeks but colour is slightly harder lol

 

[David Mitchell]

Found another shot, not sure if this is with the Kentmere 400 or the Agfa vista, so its either on the Fujica ST605n or the Nikon FM2n.

p.s. I don't currently own a wide lens lol