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[ajisaiareku]

Posting this on my wife's account since I myself don't have a coscom account. I've had my Canon T2i for a little under a year and have been learning so much from experience and getting the chance to talk to other con photographers in the area. I still want to improve much more so would love some critique on where I can improve. I know currently night time I have to improve on so there isn't so much noise in the background and slowly I'm learning to direct people in posing for whats a little more flattering for them along with my lighting. Thank you

http://www.transientdreamer.deviantart.com
or
http://www.facebook.com/transientshots24

[nathancarter]

Some general tips:
- Shoot more. Especially people, if that's what you want to really improve on.
- If you haven't got it already, get a copy of Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Learn the exposure triangle - how shutter speed, aperture, and ISO work together, and how to choose the settings to make a good photo.
- Join the forum on http://www.photography-on-the.net
- Shoot more. Practice makes perfect.
- Evaluate and study other photos that you like and want to emulate. Look at the lighting, the posing, the framing/composition, the background, the colors, the processing. Evaluate other photos that you don't think are very good, for the same reasons.
- Shoot more.
- Work on your processing almost as much as you work on your shooting. Find a good raw processor and organizer like Lightroom or Aperture, or even the DPP raw processor that came with the camera - and learn how to use it, either by online training, or by in-the-flesh classes. Proper processing can take a photo from "pretty good" to "WOW."
- Don't obsess over gear, but also don't be afraid to pick up a few extra items. For a beginner, the two things that I would recommend to complement the T2i are the 50mm f/1.8 lens (colloquially called the "nifty fifty"), an external hotshoe flash such as the 430EXII, and maybe a cable to take the flash off the camera.

Pick one or two photos and I'll be happy to give a critique when I can see them. I can't get to DA or Facebook from this computer right now.

[ajisaiareku]

Thank you for the tips Nathan, here are 2 images of when I started off and I was still learning

[CloverCreeper]

I can't see any of the pictures.
I'm new to photography as well.


Do you have a flickr?

[CloverCreeper]

*Work computer blocks facebook/deviantart.

[VickyAmis]

I am also a new one, and I just want t see what others ideas.

[Access]

Originally Posted by ajisaiareku

I still want to improve much more so would love some critique on where I can improve. I know currently night time I have to improve on so there isn't so much noise in the background and slowly I'm learning to direct people in posing for whats a little more flattering for them along with my lighting. Thank you

Lighting mostly, for natural light you have to be able to look at a whole area and spot what areas are going to have the best light -- which often changes throughout the day. For flashes, strobes, etc. it greatly helps to have an assistant or helper with some basic understanding of lighting people to setup/move/hold the off-camera lights.

Like another poster said, the key is practice, if you have friends that cosplay or there are local (non-con) cosplay gatherings in your area, go to everything you can just to meet people and practice. Join a club if you can, check meetup to see if there's an active photo club in your town, or other clubs. Take every opportunity you can to photograph people, the main photo club in my town photographs renaissance faires, historical re-enactments, parades, and other events, plenty of these you can spend a ton of time practicing photographing people.

[Ashurachan]

Post-processing is very important. The shots you posted are very obviously out of camera JPEGs, with over-saturated colors that please the average eye, but make some not-so-nice details pop.
So, first thing is to shoot RAW and carefully develop your shots. In this way, you can choose which colors you want to pop, while dulling down some others. Also, if your exposure is not optimal, it's easier to salvage it from a RAW (which has more light/color information than the JPEG).
I second the 50/1.8 purchase. A prime lens is a very interesting tool to learn, and a wide aperture lens is always useful for a cosplay photographer (both to blur backgrounds, and to shoot in low light conditions).