Critic my shot..

ChrisBlaze

Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D50
Lens: Nikkor 28-80mm 3.3-5.6 G
Aperture: f/18.0
Exposure Time: 0.0125s (125/10000)
Focal Length: 28mm (42mm 35mm)

Harryb

Welcome to Dgrin Chris. Its a pretty shot and your exposure is pretty much on the mark. I would have composed it with the sun and the sun's reflection in the left third of the frame. The lines of rocks draw the eye to the left (the clouds also draw the eye to the left) and having the sun and its reflection in the left third would have kept the eye going ot the left. With the sun centered the eye is drawn back and forth from the line of the rocks back to the sun.

Stustaff

Sky Beautiful.
Sea Beautiful.
Rocks ok but would love to see at least a little detail.

Dick on Aruba

Welcome Chris.

Beautiful shot. I agree a lot with Harry about the composation.
You may consider to crop a peace of the left side away till just before the isolated cloud. This will shift the whole scene to the left which will IMO benefit this picture greatly and created a more constant line in the rocks.

If you do nothing, it's still a beautiful screne.

Thanks for sharing,

Dick.

Awais Yaqub

i agree with seniors
great shot

ChrisBlaze

Thank you all for the feedback, I not too good with photoshop so its going to take a min or two to get the crop I like. Im still learning about the rule of thirds, so most of my sunsets are dead centered. Hopefuly as time progresses so will my shots.

Dalantech

I like the shot, but it would have been better about 30 minutes later in the day -what did the clouds look like when the sun got low on the horizon?...

When you look through the viewfinder imagine a 3x3 grid -like you're playing tick tack toe. You want to place compositional elements where the lines on the grid intersect -the rule of thirds isn't just a "horizontal rule"...

For landscapes that include the horizon my general rule of thumb is to make the sky 2/3 of the shot if there is something interesting about it, if not then make the land 2/3 of the shot. When trying to decide where to put the horizon you don't have to be exactly at a 1/3 or 2/3 point in the frame -sometimes it doesn't look any better than a centered image. You'll get a feel for it the more you shoot...

Also try to nail the composition with the viewfinder -don't get into the habit of composing images that you think you're going to crop later. You'll just end up with a lot of cropped images that still don't work...

I hate posting an image in someone else's thread because this thread is about your photo, but I also hate posting advice without giving an example. This is, like all my photos, uncropped. The sky was the star of the show, the horizon was boring except for Vesuvius, and the foreground had a parking lot and dumpsters in it. When in doubt toss out the rule of thirds for the horizon and just shoot what looks interesting. The only possible rule of thirds at play here is where I chose to put the volcano. I also aligned the shot so that the swirling of the clouds intersected the right top corner of the frame -helps to anchor the image...



After you use the general compositional rules for a while you'll start to understand why they work, and when you can toss them out...

gus

ChrisBlaze wrote:

Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D50
Lens: Nikkor 28-80mm 3.3-5.6 G
Aperture: f/18.0
Exposure Time: 0.0125s (125/10000)
Focal Length: 28mm (42mm 35mm)

Try the 'Whipping Post' for you next one but please read the rules.

First up...welcome to D/grin !!

Sorry...the shot is doing nothing at all for me. No colour other than some pasty blue & yellow. The clouds dont help the shot with any real 'wow' form. The foreground is some dark rocks...they offer the shot nothing.

Just nothing interesting in there at all for me.

ChrisBlaze

gus wrote:

Try the 'Whipping Post' for you next one but please read the rules.

First up...welcome to D/grin !!

Sorry...the shot is doing nothing at all for me. No colour other than some pasty blue & yellow. The clouds dont help the shot with any real 'wow' form. The foreground is some dark rocks...they offer the shot nothing.

Just nothing interesting in there at all for me.

sorry for posting in the wrong forum.

DavidTO

ChrisBlaze wrote:

sorry for posting in the wrong forum.

It's not the wrong forum, Gus was just suggesting that you give the Whipping Post a shot.

ChrisBlaze

DavidTO wrote:

It's not the wrong forum, Gus was just suggesting that you give the Whipping Post a shot.

well I dont think of that as my best shot so I dont think Id post in the Whipping Post, I want to wait till I get better and then post what I think if my "best shot."