Opinions Please?

[TheSnowyPilot]

Would anybody mind if I asked for opinions on pictures rather than videos?
Feel free to move me somewhere else if this is the wrong place.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I have no problem with it unless there is a special place which I don't see either. At least your asking to have your photos critiqued, some members just do it anyways no matter where they are posted. LOL

 

[TheSnowyPilot]

Here.

 

[dirkclod]

Would anybody mind if I asked for opinions on pictures rather than videos?
Feel free to move me somewhere else if this is the wrong place.

This is the critique section. Have at it.
Would be helpful if you said what you were taking them with ?

some members just do it anyways no matter where they are posted. LOL

Aint it the truth ?

 

[AZDave]

Would anybody mind if I asked for opinions on pictures rather than videos?
Feel free to move me somewhere else if this is the wrong place.

This section of the forum is titled "Photos and Videos" so I don't see any problem at all.

 

[dirkclod]

This section of the forum is titled "Photos and Videos" so I don't see any problem at all.

Yes and this sub section is video critiques. Should say Photos/video critiques. Here is where I want advice the other is where I want to see atta boy if I post there ?

 

[Prop Wash]

This is my opinion.
Overall, I think the pictures are good. Well composed. Are these right out of your drone? If so, come could use some contrast/brightness or color grading to enhance them a bit.

 

[TheSnowyPilot]

This is my opinion.
Overall, I think the pictures are good. Well composed. Are these right out of your drone? If so, come could use some contrast/brightness or color grading to enhance them a bit.

One or two have been ‘improved’ automatically and I was unsure which were which since I have both on my phone. The one in the trees is definitely improved since I forgot my memory card that day. Whoops.

 

[TheSnowyPilot]

This is the critique section. Have at it.
Would be helpful if you said what you were taking them with ?


Aint it the truth ?

Oh, sorry, my mistake. All of them were taken with a Mini.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

The first one and third one on my monitor have purple tint in the area where the sun is shining. I have seen this when ND filters are used. Is this the case with these?

 

[TheSnowyPilot]

The first one and third one on my monitor have purple tint in the area where the sun is shining. I have seen this when ND filters are used. Is this the case with these?

Is that good or bad?

And no, everything I uploaded is the angling giving colour effects.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Is that good or bad?

And no, everything I uploaded is the angling giving colour effects.

Not an expert so I just gave you what I see on my monitor. The purple tint is common with bright sunshine and cheap ND filters from what I have seen so thats the reason I asked.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Here.

The photos.
I think you need to take a photo with a point of interest in general, photos from high up with no focus on something seem lost.

Composition basically.
How to pick something interesting to photograph, what angle is best (vertically as well as normal land based laterally), frame it 2/3 in general in the photo, or crop a bit later . . .

Try and shoot with sun behind you, or at least say 10 - 15 degrees back at the sides,

Quite ok for first shots, but usually need some editing to make them appear better.

One or two have been ‘improved’ automatically and I was unsure which were which since I have both on my phone.

What program auto ?
I find even my iphone can edit very well, everything from the usual things (brightness, contrast, saturation etc) but also shadow, definition, sharpness, etc . . . and really nice sometimes is some B&W, sepia, add some vignette.
Play around with those, usually first one in album is original.

Try some tweaking and you'll be surprised what the phone can acheive.

Don't oversaturate though, too strong a colours looks awful and you see it a lot with people drone pics sometimes.

Enjoy the mini and taking some great shots.
Then you can try video, makes photo editing look easy !! ?

 

[Robert Prior]

General advice: anything about composition/storytelling/colour/etc that applies to photography applies to drone photography.

As suggested by MAvic_South_Oz, a focal point or story is important for a striking image. I suck at this, partly because I usually make 360° images which depend more on where you position the camera. (At least, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

The best single reference I've found is Michael Freeman's book <i>The Photographer's Eye</i>, which neatly summarizes photographic and artistic theories and techniques. I got my nephew the graphic version as well as the original volume and he loved them.

If you'd rather watch videos, then I recommend Nigel Danson (who uses a drone as well as regular camera to shoot landscapes).

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkJld-AoXurbT2jDnfM8qiA

Worry more about composition and story. Save your original files (only edit versions) and as your skill improves you can revisit earlier images and possibly improve them.

 

[TheSnowyPilot]

The photos.
I think you need to take a photo with a point of interest in general, photos from high up with no focus on something seem lost.

Composition basically.
How to pick something interesting to photograph, what angle is best (vertically as well as normal land based laterally), frame it 2/3 in general in the photo, or crop a bit later . . .

Try and shoot with sun behind you, or at least say 10 - 15 degrees back at the sides,

Quite ok for first shots, but usually need some editing to make them appear better.



What program auto ?
I find even my iphone can edit very well, everything from the usual things (brightness, contrast, saturation etc) but also shadow, definition, sharpness, etc . . . and really nice sometimes is some B&W, sepia, add some vignette.
Play around with those, usually first one in album is original.

Try some tweaking and you'll be surprised what the phone can acheive.

Don't oversaturate though, too strong a colours looks awful and you see it a lot with people drone pics sometimes.

Enjoy the mini and taking some great shots.
Then you can try video, makes photo editing look easy !! ?

Just whatever my iPhone puts on it.

 

[TheSnowyPilot]

Honestly have no idea which of those is original because they come up next to each other when I go to put them here.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Just whatever my iPhone puts on it.

Honestly have no idea which of those is original because they come up next to each other when I go to put them here.

..
Does your iphone editing screen show a window like this ?



Scrolling right from the enhance icon, you'll find a larger number of editing tools.
Explore these a little to see what they can do.

Not 100% sure, but I think the darker one is the original, iphone enhance auto correct seems to do the HDR type of correction, even if it's not the best for a particular shot.
This darker shot is 3.9mb too which should be about right for out of the drone jpeg.

The lighter shot is only 600kb, did you make the image smaller too ?
If not, maybe the editing did that (shouldn't though ?).

I sent the larger darker image to my phone, did a little edit on it in the iphone photos app.
I hope this shows the sharper image, it could still use a bit of darkening from the looks after uploading here.



Note, the sensors size on a lot of our drones makes it hard to get nice shots, but you work with what you have.
There's a lot of noise due to the low light, so not a lot you can do to avoid that.

Best to experiment with your editing tools available.
Once you know how the basics works, a good editor for the iphone or desktop can really help make your photos much better.

 

[TheSnowyPilot]

How so ‘noise’? And yes, yes it does show that, although my ability to use them is currently very inadequate.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

How so ‘noise’? And yes, yes it does show that, although my ability to use them is currently very inadequate.

The grainy look.

Try playing around with those various tools, it'll be pretty obvious what they are doing going to the various extremes of +/- . . . you can always undo a move and try again.

Or take a look through some of these . . .

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=iphoto+photo+editing

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

@TheSnowyPilot whoops, sorry autocorrect brought up iphoto editing, not iphone.

Try these . . .

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=iphone+photo+editing