Commons:Photography critiques/March 2015

Small church interior

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I would like some oppinions about photographing the interior of small churches, like this one. Help wanted about what to crop, the height of the tripod, white balance adjustment and exposure. The door was about 2 meters behind the tripod and the light in the church was the two candles visible in the middle and two (halogen?) lambs behind the tripod. --C messier (talk) 19:18, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest: 1) The camera should be at or around eye level, both because it feels most natural and because most architecture has few obstruction at that height. 2) The vanishing point should be above, say, the lower 20-25% of the image, otherwise the bottom looks cramped (exceptions maybe for high and narrow churches). 3) I would set the white balance to a "correct" value, i.e. a white or grey object as close to the center of the room as possible, and adjust from there towards what looks right. 4) If you don't want to bracket, set your exposure so that nothing is clipped except for actual light sources, check the image (histogram/clipping display if avaliable) and adjust if too much is clipped or the histogram isn't used in the upper area. If the dynamic range of the camera is limited, you might have to give up the windows - or bracket. 5) Shoot and edit raw if you can, in high dynamic range situations like churches, this makes a more significant difference than for most other situations. 6) Forget what I just said and ask Diliff/look at his photos. :) — Julian H.^✈ 22:26, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for tagging me Julian. ;-) Well, I agree with everything you said. A low vantage point can work but I don't think it does in this image. I think there's something a bit wrong with the processing though. It seems like the image has been overexposed and then darkened too much, the tonality is strange and some the dynamic range seems lost. I think the WB is a bit too cool. There are some strange colours, but maybe that's just how it looks. Hard to know without being there, but the image of Jesus on the ceiling isn't very flattering. ;-) Diliff (talk) 23:08, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually it is three exposures, 8, 2 and 1/1.3 seconds, merged with GIMP with brightness mapping as descripted here [1]. --C messier (talk) 07:33, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• Ah, that might be the source of the problem then. I've never tried using GIMP for HDR processing but I'm guessing it's not very good at it (judging by the result). It looks like the way Photoshop used to process HDR. I guess if you're using GIMP, you don't have access to Photomatix or Adobe Lightroom, but they are known to be the best for HDR tone mapping. Diliff (talk) 08:25, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Deflating a balloon

Hello,

I would just like some general thoughts on my photo below, and/or suggestions to improve it. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it's now grown on me.

Neuroxic (talk) 12:48, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

• I think it would have been better if you had shot it so that you can't see any gaps behind it, a but like Benh's stunning balloon image. I'm not sure it's possible to crop it like that now without making it feel too squashed now though, but I think that's what is needed to really 'make' this shot. Diliff (talk) 16:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

  I though so too, I've trimmed the edges now, but I don't think I can crop out the last piece of grass without, as you said, squashing the image. Neuroxic (talk) 05:09, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

That would have been my major point as well. I think it's much better now, that last patch of grass at the lower right corner doesn't really hurt that much. I'm not sure what would be needed to move this image to the next level (i.e. from very good to truly outstanding). It has some elements which in combination seem to give it a little bit of a "snapshot" feeling:

1) The person in the brown shirt is not yet in position, maybe waiting jut a few seconds would have been better. Also the woman in red seems to be more concerned about her camera than the balloon. (If I had to guess: the man in red and the woman to the right of him belong to the team, the rest are passengers?)

2) Moving a few steps to the right, centering the white line the woman in red is standing on might have given you more symmetry. But on the other hand it seems like the left part of the team has been doing its job a bit quicker then the right part, so by moving right you possibly wouldn't be looking at the "wall" at a right angle anymore …

3) Lighting is a bit uneven with shadowy parts on the left – but I guess telling the team to re-arrange the balloon for best lighting before deflating isn't really an option ;-)

There's of course a lot of speculation in these comments, so please take them with an appropriate grain of salt. --El Grafo (talk) 09:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Excellent comments! Each of your points are so obvious.... there were a few things I thought were slightly off with the photo, but I couldn't pinpoint them... which you've exactly done. I now have a few more tips in the back of my head when taking photos. Thanks again. Neuroxic (talk) 10:17, 25 March 2015 (UTC)