My trip to Ghana (31 photos, 56k beware!)

[ab1385]

For my medical course at Uni I spend 2 months studying anywhere I want in the world, so I chose Ghana. I haven't put up any photos of work, mainly because I didn't take any, but I'm not sure I should even if I had done so! I was there in September and October of this year, but I've only just got round to organising my photos, and this is my selection of favourites.

Hope you all enjoy them, and, as always, constructive criticism is always welcome!

They were all taken on a canon 350D with the kit lens or the Sigma 70-300 APO. I had a mini (as in 10cm high) tripod with me and my remote shutter release, but as I was 7kg over the luggage limit on the way back I'm very glad I didn't take my large heavy tripod!

The EXIF for each of these should, with a bit of luck, still be in all of the images.

These are my favourites, but if you want to see a fuller version of the collection then mosey on over to my website.

Thanks for looking!

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


#7


#8


#9


#10

[ab1385]

#11


#12


#13


#14


#15


#16


#17


#18


#19


#20


#21

[ab1385]

#22


#23


#24


#25


#26


#27


#28


#29


#30


#31

[senu]

Excellent stuff,

A few are OOF and blurred but the majority seem representative of your trip (the 70- 300 is f4 so , I imagine the blur was from the long end of the Zoom)

I'm sure you have more I ll have a look at your website) a bit of Big City/ Urban images would perhaps give variety to the collection

As for work, as long as they were taken with permission and don't show anthing medically unethical you should be OK ( I should know )

However if you dont think them interesting to be posted ..leave them in your album
Good effort Thanks for sharing

[ab1385]

Thanks!

#13 and #14 are the ones out of focus by accident. It was really annoying, it was just too dark to use autofocus and manually I just got it slightly wrong (why I didn't just focus on infinity then down the f/stop I'm not quite sure) but I quite liked them anyway!

[senu]

#19 and more so 20 and 21 are too but it's hard to catch animated kids unless you use the AF servo and higher iso to allow fast shutter speed or simply use the basic auto sport mode

They do have artistic merit though so don't think of it as criticism , just comment

[rickus]

Originally Posted by ab1385

Thanks!

#13 and #14 are the ones out of focus by accident. It was really annoying, it was just too dark to use autofocus and manually I just got it slightly wrong (why I didn't just focus on infinity then down the f/stop I'm not quite sure) but I quite liked them anyway!

Hey 13 and 14 are my favorites,like a painting by turbine,(or was it holbine)any way some good shots some iffy,but thats the cammera biusness for you, I like most,so you must be on a winner,thank for sharing.

[rickus]

Originally Posted by ab1385

Thanks!

#13 and #14 are the ones out of focus by accident. It was really annoying, it was just too dark to use autofocus and manually I just got it slightly wrong (why I didn't just focus on infinity then down the f/stop I'm not quite sure) but I quite liked them anyway!

Hey 13 and 14 are my favorites,like a painting by turbine,(or was it holbine)any way some good shots some iffy,but thats the camera business for you, I like most,so you must be on a winner,thank for sharing.

[rickus]

oops ,sorry ,pressed twice by default.:-[

[onefivenine]

That's a really nice series of photos. Personally - I would ditch the out-of-focus shots but that's just me.
Thanks for sharing these.
I imagine it was an experience of a lifetime!

[ab1385]

OK, I had a lot of (mostly constructive) criticism on another forum, so I've had a go at some processing - I know most of these have been processed way over the top but I wanted to see what it could do. I played with the histogram clips, curves, and saturation on most of these.

Ive done a load of before and after ones - what do you think? How could I have done it better?

[senu]

Well done..again

The before s seem uniformly darker and less colourful than the afters, in that regard you have certainly improved them

What is questionable ( to me) is that in doing so ( on my screen at least) there is a colour change which may or may not be true to the original
That they are more visual impressive , is not in doubt ( the skies and in most cases foreground are uniformly better) but you may need to beware of oversaturation unless that is exactly what you hoped for.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of image manipulation to add what wasn't there in the first place ( or remove distractions) to improve the image: It is yours to do that with

This is the area in which subjectivity about what constitutes the better picture comes in.: As you saw the original scenes in real life, if you feel that the afters are much more true to life . then you've done a fantastic job

What I would suggest is that when you have time, try adjusting the sky independently of the foreground as they obviously have very different exposure values
How you do it is a more a matter of experimentation as the Photo editing packages do it differently and even within say photo shop you can achieve the same result by any no of methods

Well done for effort and thanks again for sharing