How can I make my pics better?

[SSTG]

[TaylorRyanSS]

The orange is off and has a greenish tint on some parts. I tried but I need a higher res pic, it is getting pixelated. Here the first one with a touch of more orange. This is how IOM looks in real life in the bright sun.

[SSTG]

I see it now, yes. I will keep trying! Lol.

[Parabolica]

I think you still need to work on your angles and watch you backgrounds. You need to find better locations for one. This will allow you to go wider and incorporate some of the background so all your shots aren't so tight.

If you don't mind, I'll share what I don't like about these:

Originally Posted by SSTG

I don't find this to be a terribly flattering angle. IMO, the Camaro looks best from the 3/4 view, front and back. Here there are just too many distractions as well. The shot starts with grass, then concrete and finally asphalt. The cars is too high in the frame, with more grass, buildings, houses and a pole coming out of the roof of the car. The shot is just way to busy...

Originally Posted by SSTG

Personally, I think this is one of your best (although I think I'd come around a little more to the left and not have the tire turned out so much). Try and separate the car from the background, don't park it right up against a wall (unless the wall is complimentary to the shot, like a graffiti wall or similar industrial look). Remember, the car is the subject, so try and isolate it. Again, watch your framing. Here the frame is greater in the back than the front. Generally it's a little more pleasing to leave more space in front of the car.

Originally Posted by SSTG

This isn't too bad either, but I think you could have gone in tighter on the wheel and Camaro so there's more of a subject. Again, watch your frame! The light pole coming off the front fender is distracting.

I see you're using a kodak Z710. As far as the color goes, your White Balance is probably set to "Auto". Try setting it manually for the conditions (ie: Sunny, Cloudy etc.) and see if that helps get more consistent colors. You'll also want to have the metering mode set to Multi-Pattern (but these are things you need to experiment with to get the most out of your camera).

Hope that helps!

Keep 'em coming!!!

[vexss2010]

well i use HDR and yes it all depends on how u use it...I admit when I first used it the pics came out way too saturated..but I think im getting better at it...

[SSTG]

Originally Posted by Parabolica

I think you still need to work on your angles and watch you backgrounds. You need to find better locations for one. This will allow you to go wider and incorporate some of the background so all your shots aren't so tight.

If you don't mind, I'll share what I don't like about these:


I don't find this to be a terribly flattering angle. IMO, the Camaro looks best from the 3/4 view, front and back. Here there are just too many distractions as well. The shot starts with grass, then concrete and finally asphalt. The cars is too high in the frame, with more grass, buildings, houses and a pole coming out of the roof of the car. The shot is just way to busy...




Personally, I think this is one of your best (although I think I'd come around a little more to the left and not have the tire turned out so much). Try and separate the car from the background, don't park it right up against a wall (unless the wall is complimentary to the shot, like a graffiti wall or similar industrial look). Remember, the car is the subject, so try and isolate it. Again, watch your framing. Here the frame is greater in the back than the front. Generally it's a little more pleasing to leave more space in front of the car.



This isn't too bad either, but I think you could have gone in tighter on the wheel and Camaro so there's more of a subject. Again, watch your frame! The light pole coming off the front fender is distracting.

I see you're using a kodak Z710. As far as the color goes, your White Balance is probably set to "Auto". Try setting it manually for the conditions (ie: Sunny, Cloudy etc.) and see if that helps get more consistent colors. You'll also want to have the metering mode set to Multi-Pattern (but these are things you need to experiment with to get the most out of your camera).

Hope that helps!

Keep 'em coming!!!

Thank you!

[Blitz]

I just need to learn how to use my Nikon D80 off of 'Auto' mode. I keep playing around with it and hoping to get lucky, but my best pics still are when I let the camera do the work.

I know the manual mode is better if I can learn how to use it!

(So in a way, photography is just very similar to a car, auto is easy and gets the job done, manual is better if you know how to do it right... ok back on topic, don't detour the thread to "another one of these discussions"!)

[SSmoked]

Get familar with the Rule of thirds
http://www.digital-photography-schoo...rule-of-thirds

Im still learning each day with photography but practise makes perfect, just keep at it, and it will come. Im personaly a fan of high quality looking shots, which is what i aim to achieve, without the usage of photoshop(which i eventully will get me hands on).
Just some of my shots from the summer, maby give the OP and other some ideas of angles, even tho its not a camaro (no hating my SS/TC please). Ill have some nice shots of the ZL1 when it arrives next year.

[jcamere94z28]

SSTG,

If you really want to learn how to take good photos... 1st stay away from over-complicated post processing (HDR) included. For now at least. Learn your basics... learn the tool (your camera). Learn about what makes your camera tick and work properly, learn about light and learn about composition. Once you know the rules... you can start to break them.

I think I can give you some pointers as far as car photography. Check out these samples:







Some quick pointers:

• Stay away from shooting on mid day conditions (close to sunset or right after sunrise)
• avoid clutter (take a close look at your background)
• keep it simple (simple backgrounds work best when you are starting up)
• be careful with your angles (don't get to crazy with them)
• no wideangle lenses (usually for cars).
• Give the photo some breathing room, you can always crop later but it's much harder to go the other way around.
• Post-processing is only that. If you take a bad photo and then post-process it you will end up with a bad photo with post-processing. Take a great photo and Post-process it... and then you end up with work of art.
• Have fun!

Originally Posted by Parabolica

Austin, I think you missed the point of my post. I agree: post-processing is a part of photography; always has been, always will. A lot of people don't realize that many of the tools in Photoshop come directly from the darkroom (dodging, burning, masking, to name a few). As I'm sure you know, the techniques involved in the fashion industry require an in-depth knowledge of the software and hours of highly skilled labor. The models are generally well lit and well photographed (proper exposure, composition, depth of field, etc.) to begin with as well. There's a big difference between skilled editing (or darkroom work) on a good photograph, and using a plugin on a snapshot. In fact, 'good' editing takes enough skill that it is often farmed out to someone like yourself that specializes in it.

What bothers me is that people new to photography spend more time on their computers trying to figure out how to make bad pictures look good instead of using that time to learn how to take good pictures. That's the point I was trying to make: if you want good photographs, learn how to take good photographs. If you have to rely on plugins to make your photographs look, 'interesting', you haven't learned how to take photographs.

Our eyes and brains are truly remarkable things. We can view a dynamic range that is almost limitless; cameras can't. HDR is supposed to be a tool used to get around the limitations of film or digital sensors. I can appreciate good advertorial HDR work (some of Fiscus' stuff comes to mind), but unfortunately, most HDR I see is just garbage.

This is a shot I took in Canyonlands Utah and an example of a scene that lends itself to HDR:


Though easily viewed with the human eye, the dynamic range of this scene far exceeds what a digital sensor is capable of capturing in a single exposure. In this scene if you expose for the sky, the inside of the cave would be pitch black. If you expose for the inside of the cave, the sky will blowout. Grad filters won't work because of the features on both sides of the frame which are above the horizon.

For this scene I chose not to use HDR and just blended 3 exposures by hand (1 for the sky, 1 for the cave and 1 for the hillside on the right).

The OP asked how he can make his pics look better. I guess I was just hoping he meant by improving his 'photography' skills...

I didn't mean to be an ass; I've just seen a ton of crap HDR lately.

QFT!!! I couldn't say it any better.

There is a time and place for HDR... but most of the HDR we see out there isn't the proper use of HDR. What Parabolica posted here... now that's a GOOD example of HDR.

[woodstock]

Originally Posted by Envy

These are all key components to good photography but I learned my most important lesson from a National Geographic photographer. I asked him how he took all those great photographs and he laughed and said it's all in the numbers honey. He then told me that the average NG photographer took 40,000 pictures for every one that was published.

And although your composition and backdrop are lacking...I can tell your biggest problem is that you're not taking enough pictures from enough different angles to get the best shots.

Here's various pics that I have taken...and only one is photoshopped. But I took a bunch just to get the occasional one that I like. So keep clicking...

Beautiful shots Ms.Envy!

[tBowBaggins]

Instagram is a great, quick method for getting some cool shots. If you have an iPhone.
If you use it hit me up, I'm tBowBaggins on there as well.