Hi all,

I took a close-up of a cluster of barnacles on the pole of a peer and am not really happy with it. I don't know what it is, but if I could get a few tips or ideas I would appreciate it. The url is
Barnacles

I have a few other night images that are in my gallery that I just can't seem to get the noise out of and don't really know the best settings to adjust. So if there are any of those you come across and have the time to msg me that would be great.

This one is one of the ones taken in darker light near sunset
near sunset

Thanks,

Scott aka connodado

Hey Scott ... some thoughts on your images ...

"Barnacles".

To my eyes, and in my humble opinion ... I would have preferred an even tighter and closer macro shot of your subject.

Given that one prominent area of lightness of the barnacles, and contrasting colour, my own eyes tend to that area more so. I personally think there is more visual intrigue in amongst the mussels(?) myself.

In short, no real focal point ... or as I interpret your words, perhaps not the intended one.

Or as a suggestion ... and conversely, to give your photo some sort of context, move out and compose your shot to include the covered pole with the dockside setting.



Near sunset or "Soft Sunset Sleep Well".

There is an issue, somewhat ... with the way the site handles images. Conversion to .jpg from the original image for viewing distribution, and the recompression that results ... may be part of the 'noise' that you are seeing.

I am not sure if you are using any noise reduction software, aside from camera settings ... however, Neat Image has a freeware version available found here.

Fairly user friendly, intuitive ... and used by a number of members, including myself.

The silhouetted tree line looks sharp to my eyes. I am assuming that you used a tripod or some stable perch.

ISO, aperature settings and so forth? I will leave that aspect to the more knowledgeable members.

Perhaps, you can add in the model of your camera on your thread here to provide a leaping off point for more suggestions.

Hope this helps, and for the record ... I don't find the noise all that distracting in your "Soft Sunset Sleep Well". It is a rather fitting image to your most apt title.

Thanks for the info Les, I do see what you mean on Barnacles, FOC and closer Macro would have probably done the trick. The moving out and including more of the surroundings sounds good as well. I'm going to start getting more than one perspective on my shots from now on, with digital your only setback is running out of memory so you can basically take all the shots you want depending on your mem card.

I think the conversion did effect the sunset shot, I import with Picasa and sometime do minor contrast adjustments, save then open again in Photoshop. I need to be careful with that.
Thanks for the comments.

I use a Fuji E900 with 4x zoom. Always seem to forget to take my tripod and the camera itself doesn't have image stabilization. But it's not to bad a camera, I think it's the user.