BLURRY OR SHARP?
According to Leon Chistiakoff, he
went to Moogerah Dam about an
hour south west of Brisbane with the
aim of taking some photos of the lake
and surrounding mountains. He said:
“Luck was smiling on me as I walked
across the dam wall. The operators
were releasing water out of the dam
so I leaned over the fence (safely)
and saw the contrasting water, rocks
and green moss along with the
rivulet patterns beneath the spray.
I still took photos of the mountains
and lake, but I liked this one more.”
Without the description, it would
have been hard to see what this is all
about. That said, the composition is
nice and the idea of a small amount
of good colour in a fairly neutral
palette can work well. On the down
side, the black areas bottom left are
not particularly exciting in tone or
texture. There is quite a bit of blur.
Some water droplets are quite long
so the shutter speed was too slow to
freeze them - about 1/2000s would
have done it. It is the sort of image
that needs to be either quite blurry
or very sharp - but not in-between. It
could have been more interesting if
you had zoomed in to 200mm focal
length so that we could see the water
droplets better.SAIMA’S TIP: A strong image is
generally self-explanatory without
the need for a caption or a lot of
description.CLEAN AND SIMPLE
On a weekend camping trip at Wilsons
Prom with not-so-great weather, Dave
D’Aprano was sitting on the beach as it
was getting dark. He wrote: “My mate
decided to fish off the beach as we got a
break in the weather. I was watching him
fish as he was watching the weather pass
over us and wondering if he was going to
get a bite.”
I am curious whether the friend did get
a bite! The lighting is quite dynamic and
I like the layering effect with the waves.
To your credit, you have also got a strong
foreground interest with your friend.
Perhaps next time, you can ask him to
turn his head side-on for a good profile.
However, the shot is just not sharp enough,
so you needed to shoot at a faster shutter
speed. In terms of composition, this could
well do with a crop of that blackness at the
bottom of the frame, so it has more of a
panoramic format. There are also a couple
of big blobs left and right in the frame in
the sky, which could well be water on the
lens. Enlarge the shot and they become very
noticeable, but some careful retouching/
cloning could get rid of them.SAIMA’S TIP: An aperture such as f22 will
give best depth of field, but the sweet spot
(sharpest aperture) of a lens - two or three
stops from the widest aperture – provides
best overall sharpness.IMAGE DOCTOR
TITLE: Green in a sea of white and black
PHOTOGRAPHER: Leon Chistiakoff
DETAILS: Sony RX10 at 35mm focal length, 1/200s @ f3.5, ISO 200.
Adjustments: exposure, white and black points, contrast and clarity in
Lightroom and Topaz Detail.TITLE: Untitled
PHOTOGRAPHER: Dave D’Aprano
DETAILS: Camera Nikon D7500, Tamron 16-300mm lens @ 22mm focal length, 1/25s @ f22, 220 ISO.