New England tobacco barn

[Dennis]

I bought a Nikon D40 this past week and have spent some time play and learning. This is one of the first shots I have liked. Evening light after a thunderstorm It has been slightly GIMPed to correct the exposure problems due to differences between the sky and foreground. Nikon 18-55mm II AF-S lens, mode P, f/5.6, 1/250sec, auto WB and ISO 400, metering- center, exp compensation 0.

What do you think?

http://mysite.verizon.net/dennisdietz/photos/Leverett%20tobacco%20barn1.JPG

[chubasco]

Dennis,
Exposure-wise, excellent! The whole pic looks like it needs to be rotated to
the left by one degree, as the barn and grounds look out of level. Like the
different colors and hues in the sky! I would have shot this at f8 I think,
I'm seeing a lack of detail in the barn, and you could still hold focus at 1/125
second. I like it, after a good rain brings out the greens.

[Dennis]

Thanks Bill. I was actually standing in my back yard for this shot so I will try a similar shot tonight with the aperture and speed you suggest. This shot is slightly GIMPed in order to fix a little exposure issue so I'm glad to know that what I thought looked good on m y laptop looks good to you also. Also, thanks for pointing out the rotation issue. It is really very uneven in real life so I never considered that in the final photo.

[blairo1]

Nice pic, but I have to ask, lol, what is GIMP?

[maddog10]

I have heard of "The Gimp", but that has NOTHING to do with photography.

I'll let Dennis answer, but I think it is a photo processing program.

[Dennis]

www.gimp.org GIMP stands for GNU (open source=free) Image Manipulation Program. This is an open source version of Photoshop. Very powerful and useful. It is a little less user friendly than Photoshop but it will do almost everything older versions of PS will do. Plus it is free and has tons of great help forums and tutorials.

[chubasco]

Dennis,
I suggest downloading Rawshooter 2006 (free) and I hope you're shooting
in RAW. You won't be able to register or get updates since they've gone to
a program that requires fundage to participate, but I like it just the way it is,
being a closed system. Try it, you'll like it! (I didn't check to see if the D40
has RAW format, but hope it does.)

Looking forward to more of your efforts! :)

Here's where you can download:

http://www.download.com/RawShooter-Essentials-2006/3000-12511_4-10518796.html

[Dennis]

Thanks for the link. The D40 will shot raw but I had not found a raw converter till now. Thank you.

[alanhill]

I'm old-fashioned, but I prefer to see both ends of a building. Could you zoom out a bit? Showing more sky would help too. I think the sky is the most beautiful thing in the photo.
I also like the rich colour of the bare soil. A higher viewpoint would show more of it. If this were my photo, I'd try cropping out the grass at the front - but I might then put it back again: sometimes I have to try my ideas out to find if they really work or not.

Alan

[Dennis]

Thanks for the input Alan. Next time I get some good sky colors I try your suggestions.

Bill,
RawShooter did not seem to work with with .nef that Nikon uses. I ended up finding UFRaw that is GNU and also functions as a plug-in for GIMP. Also, RawShooter from download.com seems to bring in a little more code than it is supposed to so I recommend downloading it directly from Adobe;)

[chubasco]

Bill,
RawShooter did not seem to work with with .nef that Nikon uses. I ended up finding UFRaw that is GNU and also functions as a plug-in for GIMP. Also, RawShooter from download.com seems to bring in a little more code than it is supposed to so I recommend downloading it directly from Adobe;)

Sorry to hear your difficulty, but glad you found something you can use for
RAW processing. I think that is where I downloaded mine, was from Adobe. I
didn't save the link originally, and just pasted up the first link I found that had
it.

Searching about, this might've been where I downloaded the program:

http://search.techrepublic.com.com/search/Pixmantec.html