Leaves, C&C please

[techgadgetsteve]

hi i am quite new to photography (only about 3 months)
i would like to know whats wrong / right about these pics, what you would do differant. and generaly what you think about the immages.

[chris-p]

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum

I like your shots, the first the most. I have to say that I'm not much of a fan of the frames you've used though.

In the first shot, I like the overall composition. You've stuck to the rule of thirds to good effect and I like the curving edge of what looks like an old oil drum in the background. It's slightly short in DoF, the front of the leaf is out of focus and it would be better if it was sharp. Perhaps a slightly smaller aperture, say f/5.6 might have been better than f/4.8. It might be a little too saturated but it's hard to tell without fiddling with it myself. Overall it's really good.

The second one doesn't work for me. You've compressed perspective with all 3 shots by using longer focal lengths which is a nice effect and you've tried to create foreground interest but the out of focus stones in the foreground take up too much of the shot. It might work better if you cropped the left hand front stone out and created a square format shot.

In contrast, the third shot works pretty well. I'd suggest a square crop again because you've put the leaf in the centre of the frame and (again) it might be a little too saturated but it looks sharp and you've done a good job with the water to not get too much glare or reflection.

[techgadgetsteve]

thanks for the advice, tbh i'm not a fan of the boders myself but i just put them on because i could i think lol. but then i made the mistake of saving over the originals, i will have to get the origanals again off of the backup disk tomorow and then i will have a little play with them.

[Oly Paul]

No 3 for me, love it. No1 get rid of the top blue part and its a decent pic.

And oh yea get rid of those borders!

[matt wilson]

no 3 3 months into the hobby .....well done .

[donoreo]

They are good, others comments have covered anything I would add. I cannot wait for autumn myself, all the colours.