Well now that I'm home from my backpacking trip across Europe I need some advice on some of the pictures - first up are some shots of the Eiffel Tower at night. Comments and critiques are welcome and appreciated.

Picture #1 is the original with no PP, picture #2 and #3 are both edited - though I can't decide whether I like the light to the right of the frame in the picture or not.

EXIF Data:
40D w/ Tokina 12-24
Aperture Value: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 2.5 sec (hand held no less)
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 15mm
Metering Mode: Pattern

1.

Anyone?

These are nice but you are making several mistakes that diminish feedback - you are making the pictures too big for fitting on one 19" monitor which means that I have to scroll up and down to get it all in, you are posting too many pictures in one theme and then people feel too intimidated to give feedback and you are posting too many at once.

1 is nice - I would clone out tree on right and flare that looks like a comet. I would also turn the sky bluer and less purple. I would crop off the wall at the bottom. But a good picture.

2 I like better than 1 because it is vertical but same comment on wall at bottom and color of sky

3 looks the same as 2 without flare. I like 2 better.

4 is nice but I would make sky bluer and darken the building that is peaking through the trees. I think with these changes I would like better than 2 because it seems to be complete top to bottom.

5 is nicer versions of 4 for me

6.7 seem like the sky is the wrong color

good shots

Thanks scott - I was waiting for you to comment since you seem to be the guru of the critique forums :-P

And your right about the size of the pictures - I use a 24inch wide screen, so I forget not everyone has such a large monitor. Thanks for your comments - they are very, very much appreciated.

I hope you don't mind my taking the liberty of cropping one and reposting. But I am surprised that no on else comment on this. I don't know anything but what I read. But several of these broke some basic compostional rules in that you had the main subject the Eiffel tower right smack in the middle left to right. (looked like a big phallic symbol!)

And you had the tree line or horizen also right smack in the middle top to bottom.

So I cropped some off the left and bottom to put stuff in the thirds. To me it just seems a little better balnaced.

I do like the light reflection you have in the water. I also didn't take to do so, but I also agree with Scott that you need to mess with the color balance a little.

Ron

Why aren't the tower lights on? For some of your later shots could you have (or did you) waited until the tower lights were on or the tower "sparkle" lights were turned on? When I was there this time last year the "sparkle" lights were turned on at the hour for a few minutes. For example,

I agree, I was thinking the EXACT same thing about the lights. No lights @ eiffel tower means that you get beter shots in Las Vegas

No lights were on because the shots were taken at sunrise @ around 6am and one was taken at night around 3am.

We didn't have a place to stay one of the nights we were in Paris so we slept on a bench under the tower. Just never made it to the tower while the lights were on - to much other stuff to do