Below is an image shot in Barbados last year. I really enjoy trying to capture the flavor of a location by shooting scenic/landscape type shots. Any suggestions for improvements or tips on how to set up these kinds of shots? What do you think about when you're shooting landscapes or scenic photographs?
I like your improvements. I used a Canon EOS 20D for this shot. I do shoot almost always in RAW and tend to use Lightroom or CS3 for my edits. I splurged on software and if my wife finds out I'm dead! :0)
RAW images are always going to be "soft" so you'll need to add some sharpening and usually a bit of contrast. I have a 20D as well and used to use the Canon DPP software almost exclusively. Now I use Lightroom about two thirds of the time to process the RAW to jpg. I also use Noise Ninja on occasion in post process some shots. There's always plenty of tools to splurge on in photography...
I sometimes get in trouble with sharpening, because I'm never quite sure when enough is enough. I think I just need to spend some extended time playing with Lightroom and other tools and posting results in forums like this to get feedback.
Thanks for the tips!
This is a nice photograph! You've framed it with foreground elements, got the horizon straight, included nice clouds, and these are the sorts of things one should do. Firstly, picking a nice subject is critical, and next to that seek an interesting point of view: get low or at an unusual angle, and seek the foreground stuff that can make it cool. Using a polarizing filter often adds more drama to the sky (or water), and a small enough aperature (larger "F/stop" number) will allow for sufficient depth of field so that the whole scene is in focus.
And now, the pros can give the real answers! :^}
West
A lot of times when shooting landscapes I will also shoot portait shots of the same as sometimes these can actually turn out looking quite well balanced too, especially (like in your photo above) if you wanted to capture the whole palm tree in the photo. You would have ended up with about the same horizontal cropping as Dave edited to your photo but with more of the palm tree showing. When in doubt I always shoot photos both ways (landscape and portrait) and then I can always pick and choose later which one(s) I like best from there. As for myself about the only editing I ever do is an occasional crop. If I could afford the other software (and an upgraded camera too) I would be a happy camper indeed!
Actually, I have some shots from this same location that are in portrait. When I get some time tonight, I'll upload one or two of those. You're right, it gives an entirely different perspective.
First of all, the Barbados photo works simply because it makes me want to be there. I agree with Dave concerning the palm tree at right--it provides a framing objects that gives the photo much greater compositional depth, as well as content.
When possible, try to avoid horizon lines that cut to close to the middle of the frame. There's the "rule of thirds" which divides the frame into thirds in both the horizontal and vertical and calls for the subject to be near the intersection of these lines. It's helpful to keep that in mind, but with the caveat that many of the best photos break many of the biggest rules.
Scott
I don't know if anyone here has tried this yet but if you want to capture the complete essence of a place of interest, especially when photodocumenting historic sites, if you place yourself at a central point with a good overall view of the area of interest while keeping your camera level you can shoot a sequence of photos while rotating and with each new photo overlapping up to 50% of the last until completing a full 360 degree rotation. After saving this sequence of photos into a dedicated album or folder you can then view these photos as a continuous and seamlessly repeating slide show. You might find yourself to be quite facinated by how much essence you've captured into this 360 degree slide show too. Some of my most favorite photo collections were shot this way from a single spot.
Cropping
I really like the palm tree and the land/water in the background on this! The bush and scrub to the left of the scene is a little distracting, so I'd crop it out. Here's an example:
In addition to cropping, I increased the contrast just a tad and also added some sharpening. This was using a free tool that came with my Canon camera called Digital Photo Professional (DPP). Don't let the name scare you, it's a very simple, but effective, image editor. You could do the same in Photoshop Elements, Lightroom and other software.
I noticed the "CR2" in your filename which indicates Canon RAW format. What camera are you using? Shooting in RAW is great as it gives you a higher resolution image to work with. DPP is nice tool for raw images.
Hope this helps.