Think of a chemist cooking with exact ingredients, and the chef who would use rules of ingredients as a starting point, and his taste buds and skill to "break the rules" and move a good meal to a great dish. The so called rules are a great starting point and once you understand them you will be able to modify them to propel you photography forward.
All three methods require you to understand how they work or you will be mislead. Incidence readings need to be made at the subjects location. Reflected readings will be affected by the area the camera is evaluating. Spot metering, for example must be carefully used. There is no right or wrong histogram. It simply charts the number of pixels of each luminosity, not their location. It will show clipping of excessive lightness or darkness but not the region of the clipping. The blinkies will show the region's causing clipping. Light subjects on light backgrounds will have the histogram bunched to one side, dark subjects on a dark background will have the histogram bunched to the other side. The. Bottom line is that these techniques used alone or together all have their strengths and weaknesses depending on what and how you shoot - landscapes, sports,
Portraiture, all have different constraints, so you need to study their capabilities in light of your shooting.
Very nice. How was this lit?
Nice shot Fosgood,
Are you expecting damage from the hurricane?
Ed,
Nice shots. Freeport is a great place with great photo ops. Love to she kids on the carousel. We visit from East Setauket - another LI photo nut.
I love the last one, and what the long exposure did for the water!
The b/w rendition works well for architecture photos. However the dead center perspective is not as dynamic as it might be. Try standing nearer the right side and position the rear bridge opening 1/3 in from the right and either 1/3 from the top or bottom (compositional power points). You would then have a nice leading line from the lower left to the end of the bridge.
Lisa,
The best camera is the one you have at this moment. Learn how to use all its features and when it does not allow you to make the images you want that is the time to get another. By then you will know what to buy, based on your photography goals. Landsscape, sports, portraiture may dictate different choices than what you hear on these forums.
Still more.
As you can see, there are many suggestions and different ideas on which is the best composition. The best composition is the one which best helps the viewer experience what excited you. This is why you need to make that clear.
Here are some free e-books you can download. I've used much from them in a "Composition in Photography" course I teach to senior citizens:
Image Composition", by Markus Kapferer,"Photography Composition", by James Carren,
"The Photographers Eye", by Simon Rivera, "The Photographers Coach", by Robin Whalley,"Story Telling Photographs", By Anne Darling
Happy Reading
More to say. Picture two really has two subjects, the "stuff" on the left and the "stuff" on the right. What should I concentrate on? Red comes forward while blue recedes so the red boat would have made a great subject with blue sky and other elements behind. Think about what excites you most in a scene,then find ways to accentuate it - small depth of field, a framing element, leading lines, contrasting colors. Look online for free books on composition. There are many.
The first two shots have too much uninteresting sky and are slightly tilted. The horizon in the middle leaves the viewer wondering which half you want us to look at - top or bottom. The third shot has more and sharper reflections, and fills the frame better. It would have been even better if you could have moved to the left and eliminated the merge on the horizon of the left and right shores. With such a photogenic Vista as Peggys Cove you should move left, right, up and down to find the composition that best shows us what most excited you. Also, simplify, and simplify some more until the subject is obvious a and stands out from all other elements. The best compositional tool is your feet!
Fantastic shots. What shutter speed and ISO were used?
A good way to prepare is to first consider what you expect to shoot and the lighting conditions before you get off the bus. Assuming you're shooting landscapes or slow moving objects, and light is fairly bright you can set ISO around 100 or 200, set aperture around f/8 or f/11, use aperture priority (A/V on canon), and let camera determine shutter speed. Get off the bus and shoot the overall scene. Look at histogram to see that it is fairly full with no clipping at either end. Use exposure compensation or change aperture to get a reasonable histogram. This is only a start and very simplified, with other aesthetic considerations you should learn about. Aperture not only helps get correct exposure, but also affects depth of field (how much is in focus, sharp or blurred.) Shutter speed,while important to exposure, can help "stop" fast moving motion
(1/1000sec),or make water look silky (1-2 sec) and finally a too high I SO can create noise in your images m These issues you can learn about from the many (some free) books on line. So start on the bus, review the histogram and go from there.