A newbies attempt

Right, throw myself to the wolves

These were taken with a Pentax Super ME using the 50mm lens which came with it.
I'd like honest opinions please, good or ( probably ) bad.

Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire



Birkenhead Park, Wirral





Sunset at Burnham on Sea, Somerset.



My Daughter's first Communion.

And a few I've taken with my ist D.
All with the 18 - 55mm lens which came with it.

"The Dell", Port Sunlight,Wirral






Others still on SD card waiting to be uploaded to Photobucket. I'll post them another time.

As I say, though, I'd be interested in honest opinions on what I could have done better or what I've done right etc.

Nice images, Father.

But all images, except the last one, seem slightly out of focus. Ref my reply to woodworm above.

Also, in the first image, I would like to see more colour in the sky. Seems washed out in my opinion. A polarizing filter will do wonders.

Thanks for the reply. I now have a polarizing filter, but didn't at the time. The sky was a light grey overcast on the day.

I'll have a look at woodworm's thread and your reply

A very mixed set. Very easy to tell that the firrst ones are form a old film camera. The lack of sharpness and colors could be due to scanning. Are the pictures here identical to your printed version?

I doubt that. You could improve the pictures a bit with a higher contrast to bring more details.

Overall - I think you need to correct the horizon - tilting in almost all shots. Make sure to have it set when doing landscape like the church.

Keep them comming.

Thanks for the positive comments. Yes the originals are slightly better than the scanned image. And I haven't photoshopped them in any way, they are as they scanned.

When you say make sure to have the horizon set, is that a setting on the camera, within the photo software, or do you mean pay attention when taking the shot?

I must admit, I still have the habit of thinking "Oh that looks nice" up with the camera, then take the shot, without paying too much attention to what I can see in the viewfinder

But I am making a conscious effort not to do that.

Best to get horizons right when taking the picture, but you can change them afterwards. I never seem to be able to 'see' straight... (and it is not the cameras fault as some have experienced - I checked it!)

I have taken the liberty of taking one of your pictures, straightened the horizon, then improved it a bit by brightening it using the histogram adjustment tool, slightly adjusting the colour temperature, and tweaking up the saturation a notch.

This is the result which I think is an improvement

OK, so I post my pics on here and you repair them...sounds good to me

I've never really played with the images after taking them, I thought it best to try and get it "right" in the first place.

Looking at this now and looking round this forum, I think I've made life difficult for myself. The tools are there to be used, so I think I'll learn how to use them.

How do you actually do that :

I understand the Photoshop bit but how do you 'lift' a picture off the forum in the first place :

(I hope this is not a daft question that is totally obvious to everyone else )

Just right click it - and then save as....

Ted - the best thing is to have it straight from start. If not correct it before uploading. If you don't have photoshop or similar - try use picasa2 from google. Very easy to use....

Father Ted,

You could update the firmware of your *istDL too. Get the latest (1.03) here.

Ted, thants a nice shot of the church, where is it?
I think Tony has made a nice job of adjusting it, but you need to overexpose 1-2 stops for snow shots, bright snow can fool the cameras meter into thinking theres more light than there really is, so the camera underexposes.
My only gripe is that birds nest in the tree on the right, if you dont like removing stuff in photoshop then your going to have to carry a set of ladders around with you

Thank you.

Sorry that it was such an obvious question.

I did not realise that having done this, all the data about the photograph came with it and is then available in Photoshop.

I assumed you ended up with a 'dumb' image with no information.

Actually I sometimes just right click, copy, then in PSP X2 use the "paste as new image" option.

father ted...
I agree with what you said...
I suggest "getting it right in camera" is the best policy.
photoshop is best used as a tool to unleash your creativity, so it helps to start with a good, properly exposed, properly composed shot.
sure photoshop can be used to fix mistakes, but you'll be a much better photographer if you spend that time fixing your mistakes at the "Taking phase" as opposed to the "Post production phase".
then you photoshop time can be spent making "great" shots better, as opposed to making "so-so" shots useable.