A few favorites from Isle Royale National Park

Recently did a kayak trip on Isle Royale National Park in far northern Michigan with my 15 year old daughter.  Brought along a M43 kit for a few shots...

Brought the G7, 14-42PZ, 25 f1.7, 45-150 f4-5.6 and 100-300ii.

Since I was living from a kayak, the camera and lenses rode in a waterproof case on the back of the kayak.

Stopped for a break, loved the view

My daughter in her boat heading out for the days travel

One of several "Classic" great lakes lighthouses

Not trying to be needy, but I was honestly looking for some feedback.

Thx

Beautiful area.

I'd suggest levelling the pictures containing water/lake/horizon that are tilted. Also, try cropping the shots so that the item of interest is not directly in the centre of the shot (ie lighthouse)

This is where I think "developing" raw files into images would work wonders. You could bring up the color and adjust the contrast in shots like the last two. You should also fix the slightly skewed horizons and lens distortions.

I like the first image and your daughter kayaking shot. The first image has too little depth of field though. I would have stopped down and used the hyper-focal distance to get focus on the mid and back ground. The foreground rock would be okay to leave a little blurry. It is a bit too prominent in the shot.

burritosandbeer wrote:

Recently did a kayak trip on Isle Royale National Park in far northern Michigan with my 15 year old daughter. Brought along a M43 kit for a few shots...

Brought the G7, 14-42PZ, 25 f1.7, 45-150 f4-5.6 and 100-300ii.

Since I was living from a kayak, the camera and lenses rode in a waterproof case on the back of the kayak.

Wonderful area, and a 'target rich environment' for a photographer willing to take gear on the kayak. Great idea and great potential.

You asked for feedback, and I'm going to be direct, honest, and constructive below. Please take in the spirit intended.

Frankly, I don't like this shot. The focus is on the intermediate bush and rock outcropping, but that's partly hidden by the out-of-focus rock in front, and the lovely but oof island in the background. The tilted horizon is distracting, and the branches in the upper left. If you were trying to get the three outcroppings in repetition, then a high vantage point would help, and getting the DOF to encompass all rocks.

This is potentially interesting, but the slanted horizon ... at least for me ... is distracting. Cropping, getting some sky above the near trees, not burying the shadows in dark would help, and getting the canoes in focus would help. The bigger problem is that the subject isn't clear ... is the story about the kayaks, the shoreline, or something else? Stepping back a bit might tell a better story.

Nice shot. Nice balance of foreground and background. If you shot this raw, then you might have enough latitude to bring down the highlights on the water, and to bring up the shadows to reveal some detail.

These types of silhouettes can be tricky. The subject appears to the person, but placing the person dead center removes some of the drama. The paddle makes for a nice action. Perhaps cropping out the uninteresting foreground and placing the person using the rule of thirds would tell the story a little better. For my taste, I'd also like to see at least a bit of shadow detail.

Again a lovely scene. But the foreground is largely uninteresting, and drama in the image is reduced by placing the main subject dead center. It's also not as sharp as it needs to be. This is the type of scene where a bit of experimenting might yield interesting results. I'd be tempted to get a little more left for a more 2-dimensional capture of the main house, and then get closer to use more of the frame and to raise the lighthouse further above the treeline. Since you're low in a kayak, there will be the problem of keystoning which could be addressed in post.
These are difficult shots to execute from boats. I also like to shoot from the back of boats, and motion blur is very hard to avoid. That goes with the territory and just means you need to be sure to do some repetitive shooting.

A nice idea, but needs a few fixes. The tilted horizon distracts. What's interesting here is the relationship of rocks, water, and green. Cropping out some of the uninteresting sky, and then increasing contrasts would help bring out this subject.

This would be my favorite of the collection. Aiming a little to the right would remove the distracting elements on the extreme left margin, and include a bit more of shoreline on the right. It might be interesting to try shooting this from both higher and lower vantage points in order to place the top of the outcropping a little further away from the horizon line.  There's a lot of potential here, it would be worthwhile experimenting with multiple vantage points and different relationships of foreground and background.
It also needs a 'punch-up' in contrast with a little adjustment of the tone curve.

Hope you find that useful.

burritosandbeer wrote:

Not trying to be needy, but I was honestly looking for some feedback.

Thx

Sorry if I seem harsh, but well, you asked for it

Horizons are titled, other images seem flat and a bit overexposed (probably due to the time of day). Both of these can be fixed with a bit of post-processing.

The bigger issues though have to do with composition. You have foreground elements that are blurry and take up a lot of area in the frame, and nothing to really draw my eyes to anything of real interest.

Some specific examples :

- The Lighthouse. Dull grey skies, water takes up 1/3 of the image but has no interesting properties or elements in it, colors look dull and lifeless. Some suggestions: Try doing this shot in the early morning and around sunset when the lighting and shadows are more dramatic, crop in closer to the lighthouse, try portrait orientation instead of landscape or include some element to make the water more interesting (someone canoeing past the lighthouse perhaps?)

- Canoes: foreground element is out of focus and distracting, horizon is hopelessly skewed (unless that was intentional?). Lots of uninteresting water, dull skies, trees what are partially "chopped off", etc. Maybe next time stand back more, include the canoes in their entirety instead of chopped off, give the viewer a sense of "we are going somewhere" by drawing their interest from the canoes out to the water ahead.

Sunset: pretty much derivative in general. I like what you were trying to do with the framing between the tree leaves, but again, those foreground elements are blurry.

Rock outcropping (the last image): Most interesting of the bunch and can probably be saved with a bit of post-processing to bring up the contrast and saturation, crop out some of the foreground and tighten things up on the sides a little.

I hope you don't mind, but I spent a coupe minutes playing around with the lighthouse in Photoshop to change the composition and punch up the sky and saturation a little.

and here I just increase the contrast, and darkened the sky a little

Thank you! I really do find it helpful.   The horizon issues haven't stuck out in my eye, so I will see what I can do with them.

On the shot of my daughter in her kayak I wasn't trying so much to center her,  as to include the full kayak in the scene, but your criticism is still valid and appreciated

Thanks everyone, I really find this helpful!

I will review in depth. All shots were straight out of camera jpg, and some challenging shots at time. ie lighthouse was shot on a telephoto while bobbing in the waves, shot of the kayaks was done while trying to not fall back into the water. Shot of my daughter was done while trying to launch my own boat to catch up, etc

I really do appreciate any and all constructive comments