Too Much Detail

Forgive the newbie question; I asked a sage professional photographer to critique my photos, and he said, "Your photos

look like the ones from people who try to capture too much detail in their shots."

 

The images straight out of my 40D are detailed indeed, but when I try to 'un-detail' them with less sharpness, less contrast,

low in-camera sharpening, etc. they just don't look like what my eye saw when shooting or they look too blurry. Is there a

technique that anyone could recommend to fix this?

 

The other criticism was that in order to zoom in on a bird's head, I'm cropping part of the body. I understand this one, but

I've seen professional shots like this in Nat. Geo., etc. so I'm not sure what to do here.

Ask another photogrpaher, they will say something different. Its all subjective. Shoot the way you want and develope your own style.

Your style doesn't have to please everyone.

">>Ask another photogrpaher, they will say something different. Its all subjective. Shoot the way you want and develope your own style. Your style doesn't have to please everyone.<<"

 

Thanks. If you looked at my shot, do you agree that it's too detailed, and incorrectly framed? Unfortunately I don't know any other photographers.

Detail- too much detail is rarely a problem.

Composition- generally filling the frame is a good idea. It is subjective however, so composition rules

don't apply in all circumstances.

What do you mean by too detailed? Too sharp? Just keep shooting and have fun. Look at other's pages on this site that shoot

birds.

Always listen to criticism, but struggle not to be overwhelmed by it, much less crushed.

 

Judging from the picture you posted, I don't see it is "cluttered". There was a time in photography up to the

early part of the last century when what was called "pictorialism" reigned with very painting-like effects like

chiaroscuro and impressionism. It's a legitimate style, but hardly dominant in today's world.

 

Shoot out-of-focus or with a diffusion filter if you like the effect, otherwise, develop your own technical

skills and in the process you will work your way toward your own style.

 

I do recommend looking at the No Words pictures and the daily gallery postings and see what you like and don't like.

 

If you see a picture you like, go look at the photographer's portfolio.

Too much detail? Odd.

 

I wouldn't waste too much effort trying to respond to that "problem."

 

Dan

Thank you all. It's difficult for me as a beginner (with better equipment) to get a lot of professional opinions. This pro I know shoots only film with Nikons, so I thought it might be a film vs. digital thing, or a Canon vs. Nikon thing.

 

The non-pros I know seem to like my stuff, but I saw a post here that said to pay more attention to the negative comments.

 

I like spending a lot of time in 'No Words'. and I do see plenty of intentionally blurry shots there, but yes I guess I should go with my own preference style. There are plenty of detailed ones there too, but as a non-pro I'm not sure which are considered acceptable shots.

 

Thanks again.

Too much detail? I'd ask for clarification. I doubt that pro has less than the best Nikon optics, which he/she purchased to capture all that detail (among other things).

Sometimes a photograph can be too 'busy', like there's too much happening in it. For example, I've always had

trouble with <A

HREF="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Adams_The_Tetons_and_the_Snake_River.jpg">this famous

picture</a> by Ansel Adams. I find my eyes have nowhere to rest when I look at it, and, for me, there's too much

going on. I don't know if that's 'too detailed', but your mileage, as they say, may vary.

<p>

In the case of your brown pelican, I think it's a good shot and well-composed, and I can't fathom why anyone would

say it's 'too detailed'. If it were mine, I might have cropped it a bit tighter, but that's just personal style.

Hello Brad:

 

Nice Picture!

 

I am by no means an expert or an art critic, but, I think your composition is fine.

 

In fact, the bird's eye is nearly right on top of a "Golden Ratio" intersection.

 

I guess some would find the rocks in the lower right (with the leaf litter?), adjacent to the bird's bill, to be

a distraction. It shouldn't be too challenging to edit that out.

 

Alternatively, I suppose you might have chosen a wider aperture (if one was available) to reduce the depth of

field and, subsequently, blur the water/rocks a little more.

 

My only real critique would be that the white patch on the bird's head seems to be blown-out (at least on my

monitor).

 

The attached edit of your image took less than 5 min in PWPro. With more time using masks, I could have separated

the bird and water a little more using one of (or a combination of) color/brightness/contrast/blurring.

 

Cheers! Jay<div></div>

The image you posted here has a similar crop to the one you posted in the Amazing Eyes thread however this one doesn't catch my eye as well. Perhaps he felt that this particular image would gain a little if it showed more of the bird's environment. Just a thought.

Brad,

IF you were to ask 30 or 300 photographers who shoot birds, you would get 30 to 300 different answers. Every book I have read on bird photography, says to GET SHARP IMAGES; period.

As JDM,said "listen to the critisim, but do not become overwhelmed by it." There is a book on bird photography someone on this forum recommended called "The field Guide to Photographing birds" by Allen Rokach and Anne Millman, and it is a great book.

Another good book, if you can afford it, is "Birds as Art" by Arthur Morris, it is a very expensive book, or you can sign up for his newsletter.

Just remember to shoot WHAT you like, but also learn from your mistakes.

No such thing as "too much detail" in a nature/wildlife shot of this type. This is an excellent photo, and I think the tight crop enhances it

 

I'm going to hazard a pure guess that if he looked at a number of your pix, what he meant was that you were trying to get too much of the "whole scene" in too many of the shots. I used to do that a lot, and it really took some practice to isolate the interesting part, that I had been drawn to in the first place. I called it "establishing context", and a good instructor said "just tell them where you were"

Hi Brad,

 

Let me just preface this with my I'm a newbie as well. But one thing I have worked on is editing/cropping my

photos in Photoshop. By doing this, it has taught me a lot about composition and improved my photography. Just

some suggestions...

 

o If you're going to center your photo horizontally, make sure your subject is close to the top of the frame.

 

o If centering the picture, get more of your subject in.

 

o If cropping the body, it looks better often if you get the subject in the top left or top right (or bottom

right of left) of your frame.

 

Again, just some suggestions.

 

I took your photo and made a few quick changes. I sharpened it up. I added more blue (channel mixer) and added

some more water on the right. Please note, these were quick changes. I'm sure you could do much better things

at home. Anyway, here it is.

 

And BTW, color and sharpness are great in my book! But of course, this is just my opinion.

 

-Maija<div></div>

Brad, I think Dave is grasping what your "pro" meant. If your picture lacks a focal point or the vewers eye cannot be drawn to an area we say the picture has too much going on, or it's busy or too many details. It's like standing on top of a mountain and shooting the whole valley. Your picture is none of the above. It's clear, sharp, well composed, and interesting.

Wow you guys really know how to help a guy out! These are much more useful suggestions than 'there's too much detail'.

Brad, I'll guarantee you your photographer friend did not mean "too sharp" when he said "too much detail". He meant too many dominant visuals or that the composition is too complex. Compositions need to be kept simple. Very few good photographs will have more than one dominant area. Use the KISS principle when framing a composition. With this in mind, take a gander some of pn's top rated images and count the dominant areas. Then learn and apply the composition principle of key. That is by far one of the most important composition principles a photographer can master.

 

Your pelican picture is not too complex, but it does have a lot of verticals that make the composition static. Other than that, it is a pretty decent image.

 

 

Steve Lowther

Btw - in fact it lacks sharpness/detail. It looks a bit like upressed by factor 2. Either "L" lens wasn't used, or technique wasn't spot on.

 

To your question - too much detail might mean too tight composition, not showing much of the environmet. There is often not much you can do about it with this type of the subject. Shooting the bird from water level, closing the aperture to show a bit of backround migt work.<div></div>

.....Dave Sims , Sep 29, 2008; 08:10 p.m.

Sometimes a photograph can be too 'busy', like there's too much happening in it. For example, I've always had

trouble with this famous picture by Ansel Adams. I find my eyes have nowhere to rest when I look at it, and, for me,

there's too much going on.....

 

Right ? Adams puts me to sleep. Total techo freak with very little aestheic. There, I said it.

 

About that Pelican shot, I may have framed it a bit differently, but a fine photograph nonetheless. These 'critics' need

to get over themselves. Vague 'answers' help no-one, and are usually the result of overinflated egos.

 

Bill P.

Yeah I'm not sure what's meant by 'too many verticals' on this shot. You guys have given me some really great pointers though. And the lens on my 40D was the 70-300 4-5.6 IS USM (at 300/5.6 1/640, ISO 200). It's not 'L' but I like it so far. I'm currently saving up for a 17-55 2.8 IS USM.

 

I also understand about the framing, but there's not much I can do about that. This area where large sea birds congregate is in a busy harbor near my apartment with a walkway about 15' above the birds. Since I'm in a wheelchair I can't venture off the path to get a lower angle. And I think I'll be sticking to zooms since I cannot always just move to and fro to get the proper framing if the terrain is too rough or soft like sand (in this case).

 

I notice that some of the post-processing examples you all have so kindly provided look nicely saturated on my monitor. It's a screen without the anti-reflective coating, which always renders images more colorful than normal monitors, but it's been calibrated using a print. As I remember it, the scene wasn't quite so vivid. I guess I'm not sure about the whole post-processing thing. It certainly adds punch to the images, but it's not faithful to reality. Maybe I should find a happy medium.

 

These suggestions are sooo helpful though. Thanks a million!

 

This shot had more post-processing (including a little increase in saturation), but it doesn't look any different than reality.

Is there really such a thing as too much detail? It all depends how you wanted to portray your subject!

A few thoughts. First, the guys who thought the pro meant too many elements included in the shot were probably right; I assume he was not commenting just on the first image you posted. The 2nd shot that you posted today definitely doesn't have too many verticals! :-) It's also a more interesting shot than the first one - diagonals like you have here generally make the image more dynamic. As to post processing, I used to go just for necessary cropping and contrast type adjustments, but lately I've experimented with a lot more post processing effects for the fun of it. I think either approach can be legitimate, depending on what you want to present. So long as a heavily-processed image isn't misrepresented as a purely representational photograph (as in photojournalism) I don't have a problem with it. Whatever your approach, have fun!

I would understand "too much detail" as "you try to capture too many details of the subject in a single frame; choose what you want to focus on and compose for that". Pictures are rareyl too sharp and you obviously shoot in a realistic style, so that can't be the problem. It actually happens fairly often that the photographer is a bit overwhelmed of a scene and tries to get all of it in a picture, when that doesn't really work in a two-dimensional photograph. Just my attempt to interpret what the critique meant.

 

As for my own views, well, I'm not typically interested in bird photos :-) But I think you can work a bit on making the composition more exciting.

No the 'too much detail' comment was purely directed at the wrinkles in the pelican's pouch and the feathers. This is the only photo of mine he's seen.