What the heck am I doing wrong!?

[bob williams]

Denise, Actually, I think you captured a couple of them quite well----#3 and #5; which isn

[ddt0725]

Thanks, Bob! I sure needed to be reminded of the fact that for every good shot, there can be many, many that get deleted! With the beauty of autumn around me, it

[Richard Lane]

Hi Denise,


I would direct your attention back to the original #3, so that we can see what is actually going on here. It appears that the scene is backlit as we can tell by the blown out sky and the heavily shaded area over the water and the shaded area over the right side of your subject or trees. So, although you went out there to achieve the best possible lighting, it appears that it is coming from the wrong direction for your intended shot. Since, the colors of the trees are not coming out properly, you may want to consider this shot in the morning when the light will be behind you and the trees will be better illuminated.


Since the backlighting is shutting down your meter and making your subject appear dark by 1 to 1.3 exposure, you should try an add approximately +1 exposure compensation in camera.


The other thing I see, is that pics #2 & #3 are being over processed with that Autumn Hues Picture style that you had mentioned.


With the quality of the equipment that you have, plus the beautiful colors available to you, it appears that the Autumn Picture style is not necessary in this situation, because it is just making the photo appear too artificial looking. The colors are too red, so you would need to decrease the warmth by lowering the temperature towards the blue side.


As far as composition of the original #3 goes, I wasn

[ddt0725]

Hi Rich -


Your suggestions are extremely helpful!!! I probably won