Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

reecewithac · Joined: 25 Jun 2009 Posts: 22

I've been a vector contributor for a bit and thought I'd give photos a try. i just started this week and thought I'd ask for some input from the experts. Any help would be appreciated.

reecewithac · Joined: 25 Jun 2009 Posts: 22

I couldn't add these to my other post for some reason. here are a few more.

hhltdave5 · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:19 am

We need to see 100% crops so we can check focus but from what I can see I like your work. Very clean, crisp and you use good examples to photograph.

There are a few small composition issues as far as being framed a bit too tightly, some minor under exposed issues but overall not bad. I would definitely continue with the photography end of it.

You can only post three shots at a time on the thread. You did the right thing by just adding additional posts.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

rinder99 · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:04 am

Agree with Dave. without the crops can't really tell but water lilly and Bee's look soft at this size?

reecewithac · Joined: 25 Jun 2009 Posts: 22

Ok- here are the 100% cropped areas. I think I did them right. Thanks for the feed back, guys. I appreciate the encouragement. I still have the original raw files of these so maybe I made an editing error that could have been avoided to make the image(s) more appealing.

Other questions:

What are you're "go to" dimensions when you're submitting?

Do you save as baseline, baseline optimized, or progressive?

I don't really know how to ask this question right- but how far do you zoom in or how do you view your photos to see noise, grain, blurriness in Photoshop (if you use Photoshop)? Do you just "view- actual pixels"? (You know how you zoom and zoom and zoom and eventually it's all blurry.)

I'm always afraid that I'm overexposing. (I tend to like extreme contrasts by habit.) Would you be willing to let me know which one(s) is underexposed to see if I can fix it on my own?

reecewithac · Joined: 25 Jun 2009 Posts: 22

Here are some more crops of the original images.

rinder99 · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:20 pm

as I thought. These just aren't sharp enough My friend. I zoom to 125% or so in Photoshop, I have my scroll wheel set to zoom. just to make sure.The Bee and sunflower are almost there.learning DOF [Depth of Field] will be the best thing to accomplish at this point and how it relates to distance from subject and focal length used.And a good solid sturdy tripod is a must have.

hhltdave5 · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:23 pm

Ok, the focus is not that bad on some and pretty good on others. The sunflower and back hoe are pretty good. The bee, tractor and the other two flower shots are a bit on the soft side.

When checking your work zoom in to 100% because that is what the reviewers use as a standard checking point.

All of the shots with the exception of the sunflower are a touch under exposed. Not much mind you, just a little bit. The water flower is about the most under exposed.

Some cameras do naturally under expose things a bit. With Nikon this often the case. Keep in mind that very often good stock shots are bright and vibrant.

If you are using photoshop some slight adjustments in Levels, Curves would help. I would also look into using the Match Color feature in Photoshop. This will boost the luminance as well as the vibrancy.

Don't overdo it. As I said they are just a slight bit off.

Mike Price · Joined: 06 Jun 2008 Posts: 2919 Location: South Wales

You have already been accepted, if you submit vectors so you do not need to upload 10 photos for review. You can just upload when you want. I started with 10 vectors for the first 10 submission.

Mike

marcusvdt · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:43 pm

What is your camera? The type of unsharpness of some of them seems the usual from point and shoot cameras. Just curious...

rinder99 · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:02 pm

You have one of those new Nikon V1 cameras. cool, ya need a tripod for sure.

marcusvdt · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 2:21 pm

reecewithac · Joined: 25 Jun 2009 Posts: 22

That's great news, Mike. Thanks! One less thing to worry about.

reecewithac · Joined: 25 Jun 2009 Posts: 22

Yes, you are correct- just received the NikonV1 as a suprise gift from my husband last month. He got it so I could take better pictures of our boys playing rugby- not stock, just for us to post photos on the web. (I haven't been a real shutterbug since my pre-digital Nikon days and just never invested the money in a professional digital camera.)

I'm still finding my way around this V1- auto, manual, combination. (how the heck does this white balance setting work???) I really like it so far but I'm new to the digital game. Stock is just an after thought- so, my question is, am I totally hosed as far as stock goes because it's not a better camera? I know it doesn't get huge raves but surely we're above the Coolpix.

Currently, I only have 2 lenses- 10-30 and 30-110. That's it. I have an Amazon wish list a mile long!

Thanks again for all your suggestions and help, guys. I really,really appreciate it. I'll see if I can't sweet talk my way into a tripod and post some more images soon.

hhltdave5 · Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:42 pm