Ships, sunsets, bridge

[romelm]

This is my first post and I am just a beginner. Please let me know what you think.

For the first photo, I lightened the ships in photoshop a little bit but that is the only alteration. I would also appreciate any suggestions on how to capture the bright redness of the sunset but not make everything that is closer to me very dark.

The second photo has not been edited.

Thanks!

[MB1]

For starters both photos seem unsharp so something is going on there with your camera or lens.

2 ways I know of to get correct exposure for a light sky/dark foreground;
I use a split neutral density filter (2 or 3 stops is going to work best for sunrise/sunset). The other way is to merge 2 images in photoshop and I don't know anything about that.

[romelm]

I can see the lack of sharpness.

Would the lack of sharpness be because of the camera settings?

I took these with a Canon EOS Rebel XT (8mp)

1/10 sec shutter speed
5.6F aperature
100 ISO
18-55 mm kit lense
RAW image quality.

[fx101]

Were these handheld? Shooting at f/5.6 at 0.10s is very difficult to do without a VR lens. It could be some hand shaking. Try using a tripod (if you are near the place you took the shot). Also, In low light I would try manual focus, as sometimes canon metering (on the rebels) suffers through the kit lens in low light. You should get some nice pics that way. If you get a chance to take these pics again try shooting on the tripod and manual focusing. Also, try this:

An HDR shot would look nice in the marina. Take a picture (on a tripod) changing the exposure by a bit from extremely dark to light. Don't move the camera!! then in photoshop run the wizard. Even if you don't do HDR, you can pic the one with the perfect exposure.

[AlbertHurwood]

If you handheld it I would certainly suggest finding some kind of support to lean it against.
And upping the ISO to 800 then using a noise reducer would be a further help.
I personally find that attempting to hold any camera up to my eye to take a shot through the viewfinder increases the chance of camera shake.
Anything under 1/100 sec for me is almost certain to give shake.