California

[AMFYOYO]

I took this on a hike up a large hill in CA. I was wondering if it's good at all.
I'm a complete camera n00b.


http://img258.imageshack.us/my.php?image=uploadpv9.gif

[MarcusK]

Well first off, welcome aboard....

As for the shot, well a word of warning before i go any further... don't be discouraged if you get brutally blunt honesty...I got at first ...and believe me it makes you better as a photographer...

That being said... it is a nice effort, however, i dont know what you are trying to emphasise on so here the things i would say are either wrong, or need to be fixed:

1- You focused on the high-grass in the foreground and to the left, when shooting landscape you want as much as possible in focus...to do that, you need to select the smallest aperture possible (on camera you should have either Manual settings, or Av which lets you change the aperture and the camera finds the appropriate shutter speed, or simply in the automatic settings one of them will have the shape of a mountain, that will be landscape setting )

2- The green pasture could get a little greener
3- The sky could use a little touch up as well....

4- The mountains are at the center, which is why i didn't know what you wanted to show... if you wanted to emphasise on the mountains, then you needed to get closer....if you liked the sky and how it loomed over the mountains, then you needed to show less pastures....if you wanted to show the pastures, then you needed less sky...

5- Although having the grass frame the picture was a nice idea, they do tend to distract and take away from the image rather than help frame it....specially those couple of leaves that are jumping in...

Its a nice first effort though, and i suggest you keep trying and posting... oh and get to know your camera.... the more comfortable you are using it, the more relaxed you are when looking around for images!

Cheers,
Marc

[gahspidy]

Welcome to the forum. I think the scene is quite nice, and not a bad attempt at capturing it.
First off, you would be better saving your image and posting it on your host site as a jpeg, not a gif. I notice strong colors banding in the sky and not certain if that is partly due to the gif format.
The foreground element is a good thing. (the grass) I like that the focus is on it, and although a greater dof would bring the mountains into better sharpness, it does not bother me. sometimes i like the backgrounds to be soft, and in this scene it works ok for me.
I do think the horizon(somehwere in the middle of the front and rear layer of mountains) is centered and that is usually not a good thing. As Marc suggested, having more or less sky would improve the overall composition, depending on what you wanted to emphasize more in the scene.
The sky suffers from a bit too much brightness, and having a nuetral density filter, or waiting for a more suitable lighting condition would help with that as well. Lighting is so important with photography. It is something those who are new to photography do not think much about, but with more experience, it is what you take into consideration always.
Hope to see more from you.