Tuesday Night Paddle

dugmar

Every Tuesday night in the summer we have a group that goes out for an after work paddle. This past week was the Pow Wow River in Amesbury, Mass. I am going to try to be the photo guy for the rest of the summer. Here is the entire gallery http://dugmar.smugmug.com/gallery/182720/1

I will post my favorites here each week.

Here's one I like except I just missed not getting the lady in the lower left. ARRRGH!

lynnma

dugmar wrote:

Every Tuesday night in the summer we have a group that goes out for an after work paddle. This past week was the Pow Wow River in Amesbury, Mass. I am going to try to be the photo guy for the rest of the summer. Here is the entire gallery http://dugmar.smugmug.com/gallery/182720/1

I will post my favorites here each week.

Here's one I like except I just missed not getting the lady in the lower left. ARRRGH!

I like the two paddlers to Dug.. I also like the group shot, the first one. You could clone out the ladies head very easily if you wanted to.:D

cletus

dugmar wrote:

Yep, the lady in the foreground really takes away from an otherwise really good shot. Unfortunetly where she's at in the frame you can't crop her out. Maybe a little time with the cloning tool might help? The important thing is to use shots like this as a learning experience! In the future you will be more aware of foreground and background distractions and soon you'll find that you have fewer and fewer shots with little oh-by-the-ways like this.

dugmar wrote:

Another good shot, but there are a couple things that weaken it.

First is the arm and paddle on the right edge of the frame. They're distracting because 1) you have all the other paddlers forming a perfect arc, but the arm and paddle are disconnected from the arc and draw attention. 2) The rest of the paddlers are completely in the frame. The viewer's brain gets used to seeing the shape of the paddlers but the arm and paddler is a different shape that draws attention.

The second thing that could be stronger is the depth of field. The #2 paddler is good and sharp and #3 is fairly sharp. The rest of the group aren't sharp, but they're not really blurred out either. If the depth of field was larger (smaller aperture) you might have been able to squeeze everyone in and get them all sharp. The other direction to go would be to make the #2 paddler the subject of the image and use a smaller depth of field. In that case you would have #2 nice and sharp, with a nice soft blurring effect on the rest of the group. If you wanted you could try and emulate this effect in Photoshop.

dugmar wrote:

Another good shot, could be a little bit sharper but otherwise very good.

dugmar wrote:

As I commented over in the Challenge forum this is a great shot. The only thing I think I would try to do is use Photoshop to get the rainbow to pop out a bit more.


Sorry if my comments seemed harsh, I didn't mean for them to be! You deserve a pat on the back for taking on the photoguy task for paddling group Just stick with it, take lots of shots and try to learn from all of them. The shots that you like, try to figure out what you like about them. The shots you don't like, try to figure out what's wrong with them and decide how best to prevent the same problem in the future.

Oh, one last thing. You want to get lots of group shots, but don't forget to get individual shots of everyone in your group. The people in the pictures will love them!

wxwax

Dugmar, what a cool concept, paddle after work. Excellent comments by Cletus, seems right on. That rainbow shot is wonderful. Interesting point about depth of field, picking an aperature that still gives you a decent shutter speed is a challenge in the evening. What's your ISO?

dugmar

wxwax wrote:

Dugmar, what a cool concept, paddle after work. Excellent comments by Cletus, seems right on. That rainbow shot is wonderful. Interesting point about depth of field, picking an aperature that still gives you a decent shutter speed is a challenge in the evening. What's your ISO?

Thanks Eric, Sid and of course Lynn!

Yes, the challenge was the depth of field in relation to Shutter. The head on shots were taken after the sun had went down, and I was using a 135-400 / F4.5-5.6 telephoto zoom shooting at 800 asa - that lens is pretty slow. So yes, it was a challenge to get a shot that wasn't all black. It was also a challenge to get in front of the group, end up at the back and paddle past them all to set up for another shot. I was trying to get oxygen into my system first, setting up a balanced shot second. :0) Saving up for something faster in the lens dept.

The Tuesday night deal is a great thing. Very good way to unwind and meet some cool people. Plus we all go out and get beers/burgers afterwards. If anyone lives in NH or North Eastern Mass you should join us!

I do have more shots on my site, a lot of idividual close ups...

dugmar

And she's outta there!

cletus

dugmar wrote:

And she's outta there!

Nice work Doug

wxwax

dugmar wrote:

And she's outta there!

Yes, that's excellent work, more than I would have wanted to bite off.

Stan

I'm sure you have read the Blown out leaf thread it gives fantastic advice on what to do with skin tone, black cars and chrome and wedding gowns in blow outs, shooting portraits on the water in the late afternoon sounds difficult. I wish you well. An evenings paddling sounds like a wonderful way to chill