1st holiday shots with K5

I am back from Austria and this was my first real use of K5, I am a bit disappointed with the photos, I am still a holiday snapshot taker!!! and would welcome your c/c and advice as to how i can improve,these are just a small sample.

[IMG]http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd470/prd61/Austria019.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd470/prd61/Austria008.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd470/prd61/Austria304.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd470/prd61/Austria309.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd470/prd61/Austria073.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd470/prd61/Austria254.jpg[/IMG]

Hi,

give yourself a little longer in composition and angle with stray people, roofs etc in first two.

Landscapes also deserve time composing balance of shot. Try comparing what you see through viewfinder with what comes out on screen and perhaps adjust composition and exposure accordingly for your second shot, or third...

We all point and shoot at times, sometimes it works! You have a wonderful camera, keep practicing.

First thing to do is to avoid taking every shot from head height and almost horizontally.

# 5 - the church - always problematical because of the likliehood of converging parallels [ see I know the jargon - because it's happened to me ]

This can be sorted using Photoshop in post processing [ Aperture 3 which I use can't do this ] BUT try and be aware of this problem and try taking the pic from a bit higher up if you can - and that's not always possible . Sometimes you can avoid the pillars and then the convergance is not as obvious.

You can shoot from well back and then it's not as bad , and then take a closer look at the Altar area itself

Background clutter is always a problem, you are busy concentrating on the foreground interest and don't always see the clutter until you start processing the shot's.

That's the best snap shot camera in the world!

Not sure what's wrong, but some of them appear to lack critical sharpness, at least on my monitor.

You weren't very lucky with the weather by the look of it: you have my sympathy. We once had two weeks of rain in Mayrhofen...

Composition can be learnt (it's one of the crafts of photography). Try looking at the work of professional landscape photographers and see what they do with foregrounds, lead-in lines, natural frames etc.

You also need to develop some basic post-production techniques: cropping, straightening of verticals, sharpening etc. Without this, owning a K5 is like using a BMW Z8 for trips to the bottle bank.

Most importantly: keep shooting (you don't need to go anywhere special like the Alps) and post the results here. You will develop, I'm sure!

If you want to improve your photography join a camera club, competition nights are the ones where you will learn the most, just listen to judges comments and criticisms and take note about what makes a good image and what lets another down.

Also look at images you like and try to copy them in similar (or even the same) locations, as you gain experience you will eventually develop your own style, when on holiday having a look at the local postcards can often give a lot of inspiration and ideas.

You can of course post images here for c&c, posting them individually will get more feedback per image than posting a few, people tend to leave more lengthy comments about a single image.

Thanks for the helpful tips and I will take on board your comments, next job is to learn how to use photoshop elements 9 or iphoto, I have both but assume elements is better.
I was too quick in taking the pictures and didn't really think to much about what was in the scene, as I said I am a snapshot taker but your comments give me food for thought and I will work to improve and hopefully have better pictures to submit in the future.
Living in the Prudhoe area of the North East can anyone recommend a camera club?
Once thanks and I will be back.

Best wishes

Philip.

Keep snapping and keep posting, and perhaps have a go at some of this site's competitions - the subjects will make you think about what you are shooting, and traditionally the judge provides detailed feedback. Reading through the comments on the other shots, and thinking 'do I agree with this?' also could be quite helpful.

I would recommend Adobe Lightroom. Having a decent catalogue software is essential once you start collecting a substantial amount of pics and Lightroom excels at this as well providing 99.9999999%of your editing needs.

I never leave lightroom and a couple of plugins.

But the plug-in PTLens can ! I forget what it costs, maybe $20 or something like that. A3+some plugins will still come to hundreds of $$$ less than PS.