Newbie Vegas Pics...input please?

[sandyeggo325i]

Here's me and D90 in vegas...total newb and would appreciate some input.

[JayKay335i]

Should have gone to the Cosmopolitan

[InCityPhoto]

*sings* Flashy Liiights, Flashy Liiiights

Vegas is an interesting place =D

[M_Six]

Some decent colors without much noise. Nice and sharp, too. But it looks like you have dried water drops on your lens (or filter), maybe. Some spots in several of the images. Also, if you have some post processing software, try to correct the lens distortion and get the buildings straight. Nice start, though. Just get that lens clean.

[The1]

bit of a halo around the second picture, a little too post processed probably?

and i agree with M_six, you need to adjust your horizon lines, and if you're using photo shop, you should be able to edit out those dropplets from the lens (if that's what it is, you can see it in the night shots if your monitor is bright enough.)

otherwise, some fantastic colour, and some excellent shots.

[Mani59]

The first pic looks like a picture postcard, 'wish you were here'

[bosstones]

Love the colors in the 1st and 2nd shots. I like the flare coming in on the 4th shot, but the way the statue is off center kinda bugs me. If you cropped the original, maybe don't crop so much out on the right side?

[dcstep]

Well done.

This is a matter of taste, but you have a lot of converging lines because the sensor surface is not parrallel to the subjects. You're tipping the camera up. That's ok, but you can fix that with your post processing software, if you like. Some like the distortion and exagerate it on purpose. I personally prefer to take it out of most of my images.

[sandyeggo325i]

thx for the input guys!

question...can someone please show me what you guys mean by fixing the lens distortion? i definitely get the distortion and why it happens, just not sure how i would even begin to accomplish it in photoshop?

@dcstep, i actually kind of like the venetion potrait shot. since it's obviously from the ground up the top converges. is this something you would typically try to fix? if so...would you mind showing me how? maybe i'd like it better too i typically try to parallel things as that's how my brain works, straight lines, symmetry etc...but my hands are wobbly and i don't have a tripod yet

@bosstones...i really like that pic too...and ya the off-centered statue bugs me too. unforunately i couldn't get wide enough w/ my 18-200 and still get the sun and the flare. oh well

[dcstep]

"Sandy", which software do you use for RAW conversion? I use DxO Optics Pro, but most people use Lightroom or the software that came with their cameras.

That last shot of the Venetian looks very good to my eye, without correction. That's because the tower is near the center of the frame, where the converging lines are minimized. Plus, the converging lines give accentuate the tallness of the building.

OTOH, the shots with the fake Eiffel Tower should have the Tower going straight up and down, rather than leaning to the right. Most softwares, including DxO, Photoshop, Aperture and Elements, have a Horizon tool where you can straighten a horizontal or vertical horizon. Look for this in your software and tell us if you have a Horizon correction feature.

I don't have my software at work, but tonight I'll try to grab one of your shots and apply the kind of "correction" that I'd apply if it were mine. Sometimes the converging lines are left in on purpose, but if your eye is like mine, you'll want at least some correction.

In DxO, I select two lines that one would expect to be parrallel, but are not. I ususally pick building edges near the Left and Right edges of the picture and you simply trace over the actual building edges. The software then corrects so that the edges are indeed parrallel. Look for such a feature in your software.

Dave

[dcstep]

Examples:

Uncorrected:

Sample Church Uncorrected by dcstep, on Flickr

Corrected:

Sample Church Manually Corrected by dcstep, on Flickr

DxO applied both geometric and lighting correction to this image taken by a friend. Look at the columns at the edges toward the front for the geometric correction. Of course, the lighting corrections is evident throughout.

[Chewy734]

nice before & after Dave! I'll have to check out their trial version for the Mac this weekend.

[FStop7]

I like #4 except it needs to be rotated so it doesn't look quite so crooked.

[dcstep]

Originally Posted by FStop7

I like #4 except it needs to be rotated so it doesn't look quite so crooked.

Also, when I look at it a second time, that statue in the right foreground should have either been entirely included or entirely excluded. As it is now, it's a distraction and leave the viewer wondering what it looks like.

Yes, nit picky, but you're trying to elevate your images to a new level. Hence, the picky remarks.

Dave

[dcstep]

Originally Posted by FStop7

I like #4 except it needs to be rotated so it doesn't look quite so crooked.

Also, if you Rotate it, you'll make the Caesars Palace building in the middle crooked. Instead, it needs geometric correction of the converging lines caused by the camera sensor being tipped up vs. the subject buildings. Hoefully I can show a correction tonight.

Dave

[FStop7]

that's strange, #4 no longer looks crooked to me. maybe I was drunk this morning.

[hipnotic]

pics look great what camera and lens you using?

[dcstep]

VegasDemo_DxO7D by dcstep, on Flickr

I didn't know which camera body and lens that you used, so I manually set the building edges parrallel. I also let DxO pull out some additional shadow detail. Since I was working with a jpeg instead of RAW, there was less that I could do about the limited dynamic range. This was a good candidate for realistic HDR. (HDR has gotten a bad rep from all the grossly over saturated and unrealistic HDR images that you see, but as a tool for dynamic range closer to what the eye sees it's excellent. When I do HDR, I seldom label it as such).

The aspect ratio had to be modified. When I'm shooting these types of shots I'll leave a lot of room around the subject edges so that I can crop down and keep all of the subject that I really wanted and keep the aspect ratio the same. It's an easy concept to understand once you've corrected an image or two, but it might seem a little like Greek right now.

Getting rid of all that lens flare would take a lot of work. It's best to try to avoid that. You emphasized it by letting the sun into the upper right of the original image. You had very little room to work over there, so I understand why it's there, but...

Dave

[TL]

Cool pics from Vegas sandy. Like what most have said it's distortion, second pic has vignette in the corners (not sure if that's intentional) and first & last pics have some water spot flares (could be removed with lightroom or photoshop with the spot remove tool). To fix distortion in photoshop, go to Filter - Distort - Lens Correction - Remove Distortion

Guys - I think the OP is shoot with a Nikon D90