Almost a pub crawl - help please

Am trying to learn to take acceptable landscape shots but am not doing very well and not sure where I am going wrong. During this pub crawl of Spalding I took several pubs and shots of the river, although they are fine for the family album they are not really what I thought I took.

Please offer any help or suggestion that comes to mind, I don’t mind what you say I like to learn as quick as possible comments on composition as well as technique would be welcome please.

1/ K20 – Lens 12-24 @ 19mm– taken F10 @1/32 –ISO 200 tripod used hand fired.

White Horse taken from the main town bridge – the bridge wall obscures the bottom right but I could not get any higher to get the wall in – the whole thing does not look sharp to me and I am not sure if I should have removed the top of the steeple from the roof line.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Thordell/Landscape/WhiteHorse.jpg[/IMG]

2/ K20 – lens 12-24 @ 24mm – taken F10 @ 1/400 – ISO 200 tripod used hand fired.

The Lincoln Arms is opposite the White Horse on the other side of the river and this shot is taken almost from the same place as the above shot. A good deal of trouble with the sky because I have, as yet, no filter. Pleased with the balance between sky and the white building which wanted to take over but again it does not seem sharp to me and I am not sure if my looking for the different angle stopped me taking a better full on shot

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Thordell/Landscape/LincolnArms.jpg[/IMG]

3/ K20 – lens 12-24 @ 16mm – taken F10 @ 1/200 – ISO 200 – hand held.

Again not pleased with it, not sure why again had difficulty with sky and the white building. Car a pain and only arrived just as I wished to take the shot.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Thordell/Landscape/theriveratSpalding.jpg[/IMG]

Thank you for looking I hope you can help.

It's not at all easy to make a great landscape shot. In terms of content, these have quite a few bits of detail in them that we could do without. It's easy to filter out cars, lamp posts, etc. when we view an attractive scene. We don't notice them.

Then there's lighting. The third shot has the most potential. Imagine if it had no car, no pedestrian, a swan was closer to fill the foreground space and the scene was lit by brilliant evening light with a dark and stormy sky behind. The same scene would be transformed by these things.

But the composition is basically fine in No 3. It just needs better conditions and maybe for you to wait a while whilst the various components of the shot move into position. Perhaps when the sun breaks through the clouds...sometimes landscape photography needs us to grasp a brief moment when everything is right. It's pretty much like action photography then!

A good start though and you just need to look all round the viewfinder and develop your "seeing eye" to notice those details. Then with the right light you'll be well on the way.

Hope that helps!

I have to say that I find the framing to be a bit obtrusive.

With the 12-24 don't be afraid to take shots at weird angles, because often that will give a more interesting result. Also, you can't always get the results you want - there's often something in the way - so a strange angle is sometimes the only way to get everything in.

With No 1 I think I would try shooting from the middle of the road to the left.

No 2 has a lot of sky. I would have taken a third off the top and a third off the left side - but I do like a tight crop! Not everybody does.

John has said it all about No 3. It's a matter of waiting for the "decisive moment". I'm sure you know who coined that phrase.

G

Thank you Gentlemen, already I want to rush out and try those shots again, no one has said it they think the shots are not as sharp as they should be, I think they are soft but it may be I am used to the macro lens and not wide angle.

It's hard to tell if they're soft or whether the comprssion for the web has taken the edge off.

Certainly all digital images need to be sharpened (last thing we do before saving) but the wide angle shots should definitely be sharp.

Another thing where I am floundering where do I focus, if there is a foreground object then you can make sure that it is in focus but if not where does one focus are if using AF what metering system do people use?

You appear to be on the wrong side of the pub door

IMHO for Landscapes like this you need as much DoF as possible so you need to be using at least f16 or smaller, where to actually focus is just a matter of choice, some would say bang on the main point of interest others would say halfway into the scene and yet others will no doubt come along and tell you all about infinity focusing.

Get into the habit of using the DoF preview and you'll get a better idea of whats going to be in or out of focus.

Focus on the pub sign. There are practical benefits to that as well.

G

LOL I was talking landscape in general not just pubs but they do make an attractive subject shame I no longer partake or whether or not the shots were in focus would not matter much after the first two or three.

If you want everything in focus in a scene, you need to focus on the "hyperfocal distance" - as a "rule of thumb" set a small aperture (say f16) and focus one third of the way into the scene. Choose a point that is one third of the way between the nearest and furthest points you want to have sharp.