terran_melconian

I like the curve of the posts and the reflection of the lamps in the pavement. The person walking is well positioned. The sodium vapor color looks very good here and is in good keeping with the warm copper tones associated with the steampunk trope.

 

Drawbacks are that the signs on the left are not very clear or obvious at all, and in fact I think the entire left side of the image weakens it overall. Only thing I can think of would be to gel a strobe to match the sodium, hide it up the steps, and see if lighing up the doorway helped. The modern automobiles on the right detract from the steampunk feel; I am torn about whether cropping them out would be an improvement, since doing so also eliminates some of the curve of the lights.

I like the line, leading the eye diagonally up, to where the tree is. Great sky too. The color of the hill is a bit disappointing, and I would have expected richer color from Velvia; bad scan maybe?

I think it's a great picture. It doesn't make me think of combat, though. When I saw it, my reaction was "aww, the swiss army knives are dancing! That's so cute!"

The buildings are good, as is the stone of the fountain. However, I am not so fond of the appearance of the water. It looks grey and dull, not fitting as the focal point of such a brightly colored picture. Perhaps a longer shutter time to blur it would help (or perhaps not, but I can't think of anything else to try).

For the color shirt you're wearing, I'd have used a different backdrop. The blues are too close to each other. I see that you managed to keep the reflection on your glasses away from your eyes, which is good, although of course it would be better to eliminiate it entirely.

Amazing colors. I think I would perhaps crop some of the dark grass in the foreground.

Sadly, the colors seem washed out, and there's a lack of detail in the shadows. Was it underexposed?

The woman definitely helps; I think the picture would not be so interesting with just the trees.

It's a great shot of the aurora.

 

Sadly, I'm seeing some color-banding in the top center - there are bands of yellow-green alternating with cyan. Usually this is indicative of inadequate bit depth at some point in the process - hopefully some later point in the process than the original capture, so you can fix it. :-)

I think this picture would be improved by greater depth of field (smaller aperture) - I prefer pictures like this when the flower blossom is sharp all the way from front to back.

I don't like the way digital handles high-contrast night scenes; the lights are blown out and I think I see some bleed and color fringes, too; but this is pretty standard for digital at night.

 

Anyway, I think the sky here is excellent, and clearly shows that either you were really lucky or determined enough to keep going back until nature cooperated.

I don't like the large area of bright white sky, and I don't like the large area of pond scum. I think the best part of the picture is the tree and shore over on the right, and I'd crop it down to primarily that.

Yes. ;)

 

The highlights in the waterfall are overexposed, but with slide film or digital, you simply can't avoid that, and it still looks good, so don't worry about that.

 

Part of the reason your picture works well is the limited color palette (just blue and green), and balance with mainly green on top (but a little bit below) and mainly blue on the bottom (but a little bit on top).

Awhile ago, I got a color-matching test print from ezprints.com. It's a picture of this exact place!

I like yours better, though. :)

I think so too. I do think the crop is too tight, though; I'd like to see the entire ring. I'd also suggest going back and taking another one when the sky is better, if you can.

Very nice! I've tried to do similar digital manipulation in the past with consderably less success, so if you could explain how you did it in any more detail, I'd love it.

I can't do cross-eyed viewing but I can do divergent viewing, so I made a version of your picture with the left and right swapped... I like it! Can you tell me what separation you used and any other details? I am trying to improve my own stereo technique.

The extreme chromatic aberration is harming an otherwise very good picture. There are some tips here on fixing it, which even include some correction factors for the 990:

 

http://ray.cg.tuwien.ac.at/rft/Photography/TipsAndTricks/Aberration/

 

I don't have a 990 but I've applied similar techniques and think they're reasonable.

I like the concept. I think I might prefer it with more depth of field such that all the candies are in focus, and possibly with more diffuse light so as to avoid the hard shadows on the left.

I recommend Helmut Dersch's Panorama Tools for lens correction:

 

http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~dersch/

 

Steep learning curve, but worth it later.

I like the concept but I don't actually like the way the colors turned out - they look too garish and oversaturated to me. I decreased the saturation and liked it better. Alternatively, try a different brand of pencils?

Overexposed - your aperture was too wide. The composition is OK but I'd like the colors more if they were saturated instead of washed out. :-/

I ws trying to post comment tht I like it but the drool seems to hve dmged my keybord... ;-)

 

Is the sky filtered/modified? I think I can see a hint of grad filter, but I could be hallucinating it.

I agree. The silhouetted tree is completely appropriate here. Detail isn't always necessary or desirable. If this were my picture and I had detail of the tree in the negative, I'd probably print it silhouetted anyway.

I think they're too bright, myself. They look good, but they don't go well with sky. I'd like to see the one stop darker version.

 

Ok, I looked at it again a few days later, and I think what's bothering me is the reflection. The buildings are lighter than the sky, but their reflection is darker. Perhaps I'd be happier if the reflection of the buildings had been modified to match the buildings.