Rules of composition & first shots = Disaster

mart360

Senior Member
Are the rules of composition hard and fast, or guidelines?


Today i thought i'd start to get to grips with my new D5100,

read loads of articles about shot composition, which may give a "clean" shot, but to me are cold and lifeless, anyway set up as per the ideal, and i have to say the results were poor.

So much so, i wont even post them on here for criticism.

I'd allready visualised the shot in my head, some orchids/ lillys in the forground, left of frame, leading to some roses on the right of the frame (in thirds i may add) the planning may have been good, but the actual results failed to deliver. Neither the flowers in the foreground, or the background were in focus...


any ideas ?

mart
 

ohkphoto

Snow White
Hi, Mart, and welcome to the forum. "Rules" (of composition or anything else in photography, at least) are meant to be guidelines and are just that. Never let any rule stop you from taking the shot. Only practice, taking photos every day or as often as possible, will help you develop a good eye and style.

some orchids/ lillys in the forground, left of frame, leading to some roses on the right of the frame (in thirds i may add) the planning may have been good, but the actual results failed to deliver. Neither the flowers in the foreground, or the background were in focus...

This is probably a depth of field issue. If you post the photo with the exif data (f-stop, iso, shutter speed), we could give you more specific advice.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
The "rules" depend on you, you are the artist conveying your message, if others don't like it, too bad. To me they are guidelines that help, but ultimately, I do what I feel it takes to capture the objective. There are some that will say they are rules and you will produce crap unless you follow them, I do not run with that crowd :).

We cannot help you much unless you post your work. This is not the critique section, so it is understood that you are not showing us your best work. Show us what you have so we can help you release that photographic genius within you!
 
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mart360

Senior Member
Ok here's the pic
DSC_0001.jpg


one thing i have noted, is the colours are all wrong too... the orchid in the front should be vivid purple, and the wall at the back should be a soft cream colour, almost grey infact.


Mart
 

Rick M

Senior Member
Mart,

-I am assuming you used a tripod? If not, at 1/13th, your shutter speed is way to slow.

-The D5100 performs better at higher shutter speeds in general, I set my base ISO at 200, even with a tripod.

-Depth of field is an issue here and perhaps the main reason you did not capture your vision. At f4.5, you have a narrow plane of focus, For greater DoF, I shoot flowers up to f11. Some people like the effect you have created and try to do that intentionally with narrow DoF, shooting below f4.5. When you are close to the subject this effect is even more noticeable, at 30mm, you were close. The petal to the upper left is in focus and the overall results are expected with the settings you used. When I shoot flowers, I'll take about 6 shots, between f3.5 and f11, discarding what does not achieve the results I wanted.

-Did you shoot in raw? You can adjust the white balance and colors in post processing. The auto mode simply picked the wrong exposure for the setting, again, adjust in PP. This is also what is causing the colors to be wrong.
 

eurotrash

Senior Member
I would have used spot metering instead of the pattern metering that was chosen here.
I would have also used about F8-F11.
You can also set your colour balance to a custom one and change the whole tone curve (that's in your manual..) I almost always use A-2 or A-3 for shots indoors to kind of warm them up a bit since A-2 is basically, "amber colour +2 saturation" in layman's terminology.
Back up when shooting these flowers and crop later. Unless you have a macro lens.
As far as the brightness goes, you didn't do anything in post, so if you shot RAW, you could go back in and brighten it up a little, tweak the colours, sharpen etc. I almost always use an exposure compensation of about +1 on all my photos because my nikon tends to underexpose (to my eyes) all my shots.
 

mart360

Senior Member
hots were set up as follows

Manual using auto AP ..

All shots in RAW format, but dont ask me how to adjust using the NX2 :) i tried using other SW but ended up just giving the picture a strange cast

Mart
 

sidewinder1009

Senior Member
I discovered after a little while that images uploaded or sent to other devices that I had exported from lightroom were seriously under saturated.
After a lot of searching on the internet I discovered it was because some devices and websites are not compatible with AdobeProRGB, after selecting sRGB the problem was solved. (I shoot raw because 24bit files have more room for adjusting)

I don't know if this is the colour cast you are experiencing but it was a source of frustration for me for about a week (the week I had off work on rest after night shifts so I had way too much time to take pictures)

Other than that the problem will most probably be white balance on colour casts, if the image had white in it, it should be white(if lit by the same source as the subject) not tinted blue or orange (unless capturing the colour cast on purpose) your eyes will automatically adjust to changing white balance so if it looks wrong on the screen the white balance is wrong.

If the white is grey or 'too' white then it is under or over exposed respectively (this can be caused by the colours in the image or accidentally dialling in under or over exposure)

I tried to shorten this but and still cover all my ideas without over complicating things, I'll respond to any questions I can help with.

Oliver
 

mart360

Senior Member
Just viewed the pics on my monitor at work,

All the colours are correct, ie the iris is purple lol.... so thats one for me to be aware of, i may need to see if i can tweak the colour registers on this laptop.

I managed to find a tripod when having a clearout lol, its not the most robust looking or may not be pretty, but it will do for low level house / garden work..

I'll have another go with some options next week, i need to get a bag sorted as its a bit of a pain having to pack it back in the box every time


Mart
 

mart360

Senior Member
Got some new subjects just starting to open ... 8" Oriental lilly's

Have a tripod, and secured with the advice fro here, i shall try again...

thats if the intoxicating aroma dosent overwhelm me

Mart
 

Philnz

Senior Member
Just viewed the pics on my monitor at work,

All the colours are correct, ie the iris is purple lol.... so thats one for me to be aware of, i may need to see if i can tweak the colour registers on this laptop.

I managed to find a tripod when having a clearout lol, its not the most robust looking or may not be pretty, but it will do for low level house / garden work..

I'll have another go with some options next week, i need to get a bag sorted as its a bit of a pain having to pack it back in the box every time


Mart
I don't think the screens on laptops are the best for looking at images. A good LED full HD is the way to go.
 
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