This is my first picture post of any kind in a public forum. I have a thick skin, though, and I know how it works here. I am somewhat equipment-challenged right now, with only a 300D and the 18-55 kit lens (40D arriving Friday! Woohoo!). The light was fading, and I had to brace on the guard rail of a highway overpass. I had to crop more than I would have liked, but the image didn't degrade as much as I expected. My PP consisted of cloning out some distracting white bits and de-saturating the flora, which was also distracting. Is there anything to like about this shot? What should I have done differently? Thanks in advance (and sorry if the pic doesn't show; like I said, I've never posted before).

As an avid cyclist, I'm curious about the story behind this shot.
Image needs a bump up of contrast with an S curve in Photoshop or play in your editor of choice. Other than that, photo is fine, but it did take me a bit of time to locate the bike in such a large scene.
40D should be great, but the 300D served me well for a couple of years and the 18-55 is not bad.
You might want to post larger, for better feedback. Try 800 pixels on the long edge.
Scott G

Thanks for the feedback. I felt the same way about the bike, but 1. I like the shapes of the big rocks, and 2. Any more cropping and it would have fallen to pieces.

I enlarged the pic.

Mike

Good framing. Interesting. Do ctrl L and move triangles in to histogram is my suggestion to get better white balance.

A bit of noise reduction or depspeckling might help.

It's an interesting perspective, especially when you can't see the entire photo at once.

More contrast would be nice, but that will be tough with the reflections on the surface of the water. The shadows of the rocks already look like they're about as dark as they should be, so increasing contrast might throw that off a bit.

Shooting with a polarizing filter to cut the reflections and allow some more detail from the bottom to come through might have helped.

Thanks. I'm just realizing that I need to pay more attention to WB. I've been lazy with it so far.

Thanks. I need to build a basic set of filters, including a polarizer. Other than just getting a new camera last week, I have a blank slate when it comes to equipment.

sbeme wrote:
As an avid cyclist, I'm curious about the story behind this shot.
Image needs a bump up of contrast with an S curve in Photoshop or play in your editor of choice. Other than that, photo is fine, but it did take me a bit of time to locate the bike in such a large scene.
40D should be great, but the 300D served me well for a couple of years and the 18-55 is not bad.
You might want to post larger, for better feedback. Try 800 pixels on the long edge.
Scott G


I just got back to tweaking this. Your input about contrast was a great help.