My latest pics please give criticism and explain how i could fix.

[gavpedz]

hear are a few of my latest pics of sunsets it is really hard to get a clear pic in such low light how do you guys do it?

I personally like my pics but don't feel that they are of great standard the main problems i have are focus and how much of the picture is in focus any help on this would be great.

anyway here are a couple of pics there are a couple of sun set ones and a couple of sculptures at the broomhill sculpture garden in Devon.

 

[tdodd]

hear are a few of my latest pics of sunsets it is really hard to get a clear pic in such low light how do you guys do it?

I personally like my pics but don't feel that they are of great standard the main problems i have are focus and how much of the picture is in focus any help on this would be great.

anyway here are a couple of pics there are a couple of sun set ones and a couple of sculptures at the broomhill sculpture garden in Devon.

Have a look at this website - http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html - where you can work ot Depth Of Field data and also Hyperfocal Distance for your combination of camera body, lens focal length, aperture and subject distance.

Taking your first picture as an example your relevant EXIF data is....

Olympus E410;
45mm;
f/10.

Plugging your details into the DOF calculator we see that the Hyperfocal distance is 44.1'. If you were to focus at that distance then you would have the maximum amount of the scene in focus from as close as possible until infinity in the distance, which is for practical purposes where your sunset is. By focus at 44.1' you would also have things looking sharp as close to you as 22', but that is not close enough for your chosen foreground subject.

You could stop down further to f/16, which would help a bit, and/or move a bit further away from your foreground subject and/or set your focus a little closer, which would bring your foreground into sharper focus, at the risk of softening the sunset a little. The only issue with f/16 is that you may start to see the effects of diffraction causing softening throughout the picture, but probably only if you view the image at a largeish size. For the sizes here I doubt very much it would be visible.

I also notice that you are blowing the highlights in and near the sun in some cases as well as losing the foregrond detail completely as (near) black shadow. You may want to consider shooting raw and tweaking levels/curves to create alternative effects and/or shoot with a tripod and autoexposure bracketing and then combine the exposures to blend details from the sky and the foreground. In some cases you could also use fill-flash to put some light onto your near subject.

But really, what you need to do depends on your artistic intent for the scene before you. I don't know whether you want silhouettes and shadows in your foreground. A sharp, artistically lit foregrond subject against a slightly soft but colourful backdrop may also work well.

I have no idea whether this technique would work, as I have never tried it, but in the macro world there is a technique to achieve very large DOF called Focus Stacking. The idea is that you take a number of shots, each focused slightly differently, and then use software to combine them. Whether it would work on this scale I have no idea. A tripod would be essential to keep the framing exact from shot to shot, just as with HDR for exposure.

Certainly I think there are a number of options to consider, but learning about DOF and Hyperfocal Distance is probably the first step..

 

[gavpedz]

Have a look at this website - http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html - where you can work ot Depth Of Field data and also Hyperfocal Distance for your combination of camera body, lens focal length, aperture and subject distance.

Taking your first picture as an example your relevant EXIF data is....

Olympus E410;
45mm;
f/10.

Plugging your details into the DOF calculator we see that the Hyperfocal distance is 44.1'. If you were to focus at that distance then you would have the maximum amount of the scene in focus from as close as possible until infinity in the distance, which is for practical purposes where your sunset is. By focus at 44.1' you would also have things looking sharp as close to you as 22', but that is not close enough for your chosen foreground subject.

You could stop down further to f/16, which would help a bit, and/or move a bit further away from your foreground subject and/or set your focus a little closer, which would bring your foreground into sharper focus, at the risk of softening the sunset a little. The only issue with f/16 is that you may start to see the effects of diffraction causing softening throughout the picture, but probably only if you view the image at a largeish size. For the sizes here I doubt very much it would be visible.

I also notice that you are blowing the highlights in and near the sun in some cases as well as losing the foregrond detail completely as (near) black shadow. You may want to consider shooting raw and tweaking levels/curves to create alternative effects and/or shoot with a tripod and autoexposure bracketing and then combine the exposures to blend details from the sky and the foreground. In some cases you could also use fill-flash to put some light onto your near subject.

But really, what you need to do depends on your artistic intent for the scene before you. I don't know whether you want silhouettes and shadows in your foreground. A sharp, artistically lit foregrond subject against a slightly soft but colourful backdrop may also work well.

I have no idea whether this technique would work, as I have never tried it, but in the macro world there is a technique to achieve very large DOF called Focus Stacking. The idea is that you take a number of shots, each focused slightly differently, and then use software to combine them. Whether it would work on this scale I have no idea. A tripod would be essential to keep the framing exact from shot to shot, just as with HDR for exposure.

Certainly I think there are a number of options to consider, but learning about DOF and Hyperfocal Distance is probably the first step..

#

Thank you that is a great help. in regard to the first pic my aim was to have a slightly blurred foreground and the sunset to be clear and i did like the silhouette effect more than having detail i the foreground for this shot.

Ok so i have just looked at that calculator, if i understand this correctly then just playing i set on the calculator

45mm
f/9.5

which gives
Hyperfocal distance 46.7 ft

Now my lens is only up to 45mm
so am i right in thinking if i am taking a pic at full zoom (45mm) then i can not really use bellow f/10 as the Hyperfocal distance would be to high?

Would my shots of the sunset have been better if i had a high zoom lens as mine is only up to 45mm?

 

[tdodd]

I'm confused about what your aim is. You said you wanted the foreground subject soft and you achieved that. You said you wanted the foreground image captured as a silhouette and you achieved that. Can you describe more precisely what you are trying to achieve? I doubt very much that a longer zoom is the answer you are looking for.

Taking your f/10 aperture as a baseline, if you open up to f/5.6 you will have less DOF and you will be able to make the foreground softer. If you stop down the aperture further to f/16 you will make it a little sharper, all other things being equal. If you set focus a little further away then you will also be able to make the foreground subject softer, and the sunset will still be sharp. If you bring the focus a fraction closer you will make the foreground a little sharper and you may not notice a slight softening in the background anyway, because it does not have any detail to speak of.

If you change focal length you will change the composition of the picture. If you go longer with your lens you will narrow the field of view and, if you step back in order to keep the foreground object looking about the same you will see less of the sky behind it. Conversely, if you shorten the focal length and step closer you will get a wider angle of view and you will capture even more of the sunset.

Work out the composition you want first and then figure out what aperture you need to achieve the desired DOF and where to set focus to achieve the effect you want.