Nature photos

[jackthegreenrat]

These are some photos I have taken with my Lumix around the South Island of NZ - am looking for some critiques as I want to improve what I am doing!

[gahspidy]

Good shots. The first one I like the colors but not sure what I'm viewing. The second shot would be my favorite here of the three. i like the mountain standing above the mist and clouds. A good moody feel. The third shot i like the negative space and the composition. . .just would have liked to see the subject at least the eyes anyway, a bit sharper. Good subjects and compositions

[jackthegreenrat]

The first shot is some sea anenomes shot throught the water - trying to time the shot so the waves would not distort the shot too much! Really this was my first foray into "creative" photography, about 12 months ago.
I dig what you mean about the last shot - I am hanging out to buy a DSLR with manual focus so I can sort out night-focussing issues...

[Steph_B]

Welcome to PR! These are vey nice pics. I particularly like the composition of the second and last pics.

As for the first pic, it is nicely exposed and sharp. The colors are just vibrant. Are you shooting film or digital? I always found that taking pics of coastal marine life is a major challenge. A friend of mine specializes (kinf of) in this thing (star fish, orchins, anemones, etc..). He often tries to keep some horizon line in his pics. He uses a wide angle and shoot very close to his subject with a shallow DOF. The horizon line is usually quite high on his pic, but still visible. This also gives a feeling for the weather. Overcast seems to be what he prefers. I will try to get him to post one of his pics on this site.

Hope to see more of NZ!

Cheers,

Steph.

[jackthegreenrat]

Using digital - just a glorified point-and-shoot (albeit with a nice 12x opty zoom!) but hopefully will upgrade to a D-SLR when I gets the $$$
I think I can dig what you mean about the horizon - sounds like a good tip that I will bear in mind! In this case it wasn't really possible - I was sort of shooting straight down between some rocks through about 6 inches of water, that changed to 18 inches with every wave! More of a lucky shot that I like for the sort of surreal image of the blurred colours...
Thanks for all your comments guys!