So last week I took a trip to visit my aunt and uncle, and do some hiking with my cousin. They happen to live right outside of Zion so I spent quite a bit of time there each day.

I took around 900 photos but didn't even have one that I really liked. It was absolutely gorgeous, but none of the beauty seemed to show up in my photos. I realize a huge part of this is I'm still learning how to properly use the camera in general, but still, I figured I would get at least a couple good ones.

A couple things I'm thinking could be part of the problem:

- I rarely used a tripod, so some of the photos that did actually have potential weren't quite as sharp as they should have been. Maybe I'm a little too shaky :\
- A majority of peaks were snow-covered, and the sky was very pale, which caused the ridge line to blur right into the sky. How can I prevent this from happening?
- I didn't have a very wide angle lens. There were MANY shots that I simply didn't take because I couldn't fit everything I wanted into the frame. This was incredibly frustrating.
- I simply have no idea what I'm doing still when it comes to photography, especially composition. This is the most likely scenario, but understanding specific problems should help me...

Anyway, I'm going to be driving back up to Utah (and Zion) again in about a month, and this time I will be backpacking for at least a few days, but I'd like to understand where I went wrong this time. In the second post of this thread I will post some specific photos that I thought had awesome potential but absolutely failed once I took a look at them.

Here are a few photos that I didn't completely hate that I took on the trip (feel free to give feedback on those as well, any help is appreciated):





















This post was edited by Sloxx on Feb 8 2010 10:02pm

As promised, here a couple specific examples that really upset me:





I had no idea how to go about photographing this... it looked quite awesome in person. It was at the base of a waterfall where water had kept trickling down and formed a bunch of icicles. I took several photos and none turned out any good.




This one was the biggest disappointment for me. This was one of the most beautiful views I had seen in my life. The light was amazing, the shadows were interesting, and there was an awesome range of colors. First problem is that I needed a wide-angle lens, so I couldn't even capture everything I wanted. And even aside from that, the colors were flat, the images were dull. Nothing about these pictures ended up impressive at all, and I assure you that the view I saw while walking back down from the waterfall was amazing. What exactly went wrong here?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Sometimes just by adjusting the shutter speed can help the shaky photos become more clear. That also depends on the amount of light in the area you are taking the photo in. Yep, you are not going to get it perfect the first time, but these photos that you took will definitely help you. One day you'll look back on them and say to yourself "wow I guess I did learn a lot since then!" From here on, you will only get better. Keep at it!

I know how you mean about the wide angle lens thing! I bought myself a wide angle lens just for that reason! And I absolutely love it. In the future, if you do more shots like that, I definitely recommend a wide angle lens for your next purchase! I love it for nature photos just like the ones you took here.

I was looking at picture number 2. I love the color in the sky and I love the rockyness in the distance. Talking about composition, I think if you put that hill/mountain at the bottom of the frame, it would look awesome; cutting out the shadows of the tree on the ground. It is hard to work on composition, it takes a little patience, but you find it eventually I like to try different angles and see which I like better for that reason. No one ever said composition was easy!

I think what mostly went wrong was your choice of shutter speed and possibly ISO. I see that some of the pictures are dull like you said, I used to have that too. It really is frustrating. Getting that ISO and shutter speed, and also Aperture just right makes a lot of difference. The last photo there looks kind of washed out, which makes it almost seem like you used too high of an iso, or too slow of a shutter speed (letting more light in). I'm no pro at photos, so if I am wrong here, please do feel free to correct me. I'm just speaking from experience. With practice you will get better!!! Also, I really like the view you have here in these photos.

The icicles photo looks as if it's really dark. You can do multiple things to help that. Changing your AF number (aka aperture) to a smaller number, like 5.0 will help. If you had it at 8+ that's really high. Lower aperture means more light into the camera. Higher number means less light into the camera. You could have also lowered the shutter speed on this one too; but that's tricky, because if you lower it toooo much, you will get camera shake, and that will cause a blurry photo. If you choose a higher ISO, that can help here too, higher iso makes the picture lighter, and sometimes has a little effect on the colors too, depending. Sometimes it's nice to lower your AF number to the lowest, so you can use a higher shutter speed, for lets say, moving objects, or less camera shake.

This post was edited by chantal7 on Feb 8 2010 10:24pm

I just got into photography not too long ago myself, not a pro by any long shot. But i can give you advice from what i have learned (and i've read alot, ALOT of photography books).



First of all, a quality tripod will make your images shine. It's a very worthy investment.



A polarizing filter will do wonders here. And for landscape photography, a polorizing filter is a must have accessory.



Sometimes, capturing it all isn't always the best, select a small section that is appealing and compose around that shot. I've seen alot of pro photographers take landscape pics with telephoto lens such as the 70-200 or 100-400. No lies
Again, going back to the tripod, with a good tripod and ballhead. You can take numerous shot and merge them into a panoramic


The problem with this shot is that it seems that you have a very low aperture. Thus you have the center focus and the DOF (depth of field) kicked in and blurred out the rest of the image. Turn down your aperture to f/11 or f/16 etc then take your shot. Everything should be in sharp focus. Also, by turning down the aperture, you slow down your shutter speed and will make the little stream look silkier.


This image is suffering the same DOF effect as the photo above. The use of a polarizing filter would help bring some color back into the sky. Another problem is that your horizon is not straight. The help from a tripod with a level would have cure this problem (or some post processing). To me, it seems like the scene is overexposed abit. I would definitely do apply -EV to bring the colors back to normal. I know this will darken the shadows even more.. but this is where bracketing (should be in your manual if you want to know how to use it) will help. Take multiple exposures of the same scene. One for the highlights, one for midtone, and lastly the other for shadows.


As for this shot, if your main focus is the deer- Meter for it! either switch your metering mode to center-weighed or spot metering. The deer is under exposed. Try and stick the the rule of thirds linked below. Also try and frame your shot to give the deer room to move into.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds


This shot just had so much distraction. I know it's probably not possible. But birding = long lens. : /


This shot is also over-exposed. And the DOF problem. Close down your lens's aperture.


Nice shot here. It'll be better if we can see the eyes.


Over exposed shot. The use of a polarizing filter will help eliminate the flare/ glare. Not sure what your focus of this shot here. If it's the waterfall you're trying to shoot. Reposition yourself to frame the shot better, and focus on the waterfall instead of the tree branches that distracts the shot.


Rules of third! Try cropping the photo if you have to!


For this shot, it's way under exposed. Turn up your EV to prevent the camera neutralizing a bright scene. Remember, the camera will always try to meter for a 18% gray scene.


This is a over-exposed scene. The tree on the bottom right corner is distracting, frame your shot around it. Also bracketing (taking multiple exposures) will help here. Lower your aperture, lots of stuff isn't in focus.

Phew.. long post. Hope this helps!

This post was edited by Eek on Feb 8 2010 11:05pm

Oi! You're right in my neck of the woods... Other than that, I can't really offer much more advice other than what has already been said...

problem with every shot is that you used f/2.8 and thats too low for this kind of shots. you dont need a tripod in this kind of places imo, theres enough light to use bigger f-number and still short enough shutter speed so that you dont get motion blur.

i liked these 3 shots alot but they needed little photoshopping, i was bored so i did some fast photoshopping on them.

It seems like the majority of these shots were taking during mid-day with hard overhead sunlight.
I think re-taking these pictures around sunrise/set would help substantially in providing a better quality of light.

Not having a wide-angle lens isn't the end of the world. You can hand hold a panoramic shot and edit the composure that you wanted in photoshop later.

I really like the composition of this one:

Such a vast and gorgeous landscape!

I like all of them a lot, but the last one is my favorite as well. The composition is just brilliant.
That path running down and you look up those tall mountains suddenly... wow took my breath away for a moment in astonishment