Just trying out mini 5 with a few firework shots.
Cut short due to rain.
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A few photos from this afternoon around Chepstow Castle and the River Wye Bridge. Still need to work on my composition I think. Tinkered around with light and colours in the Mac Photos app. All suggestions on how to improve these or any other tips are most welcome…
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@AndyGoose - The questions of light and composition are two questions without definitive answers. I’ll try to explain what I mean…
These two components of the photo are entangled with the subject and I think depends on what you’re trying to achieve. If you want a mean and moody look to the castle, or anything else, low light may be best, changing the hue may help with this. However if you want to just high-light what is left of this historic building, again or any other, a high shot taken at about 30-40 degrees with the subject in the middle of the frame.
composition - Again this depends on the required end result. What do you want as the high-light of the end result/picture? Some say frame the subject in the centre of the frame, others including myself, prefer to off-set the subject and be far enough away from the subject to have some surrounding area whatever that may be.
Where the photo is taken from is also a big influence on how the end result looks, which again is about what you’re trying to achieve…
Put simply, I don’t think there is one simple answer, one trick I used with SLR & DSLR’s was bracketing, using a combination of shutter speed and ISO setting to change how the camera and you see the picture, it’s all about experimenting to see what gives you the end result you see.
Personally, I try to avoid post picture editing…
Hope this makes sense, even if just a little!
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Butt of Lewis Lighthouse, Outer Hebrides October 2025 not a great day for it but at least the winds were low. Air3S
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Thank you. Totally new to photography. And flying! So appreciate all the advice I get.
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Nice shots , the day we visited it was horrible for the weather the only place I could fly was in the toilet lol’s , p.s which I did not.
Yes the wind was the main issue when we were there a few weeks ago
Great pics, personal favourites are the last two.
Sorry, couldn’t resist….
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You asked for tips on making better pictures, so here goes! You’ve done a decent job in the conditions you had, so you’re off to a good start. I’ll take them in order.
0107: Most people don’t get close enough to the subject, I think your just a little too close here, if you had pulled back a little you would have got the right hand tower in. This is about the edges of the photo, always do an edge patrol to avoid things on or spanning the edge. The exposure, colour and contrast are great, as they are in all the pictures.
0110: The is well put together, being picky, the sky is more interesting than the water so pointing the camera up more might have worked better.
0114: Diagonals add tension which you’ve done well here. If you wanted more of that start the bottom right of the bridge at the bottom right of the frame and include a little more of the right bank.
0118: Nicely done, perhaps a little close again, it would be good to see more of the bottom tower.
In general if you post-process these you’ve got some moody skies which you could turn up to make more of.
For example:
I hope that helps. Something else you can try is uploading an image to your AI system of choice and asking it what it thinks and how it could be improved.
I struggle with getting it right with a drone because it can be difficult to see what you’re taking on the screen, especially on a bright day. Depending on what you are planning on doing with the images you could shoot a wider (include more than you need) and crop to what you want when you get home.
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Thank you so much for this. Really detailed and helpful feedback. Can I ask how you brighten the sky without the rest washing out?
Again, thank you for taking the time. 
I used Photoshop generative crop to make more sky, then I used Adobe Camera Raw to select the sky and increased the dehaze which works wonders with skies. If you want to get into post-production of your images and don’t want to spend any money then Affinity Studio is now available free of charge. Unfortunately you won’t get AI selections with the free version, but there are other ways to get a good result. As always with complex software like Affinity YouTube is your friend. You can add AI with a Canva subscription at £100 per year
The problem with cameras is that they are scientific instruments which measure light intensity and colour, our brains interpret a scene when we are there and often the photograph doesn’t convey what we saw and felt so it needs some help by editing it.
@martinti I popped out to take a couple of photos today and had a little play around with Affinity Studio…
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Plenty of atmosphere in this one.
Watch the black area at the bottom, it could do with some detail in it, but given the strength of the light from the sky you might not have any there in the first place.
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Was working bonfire night overtime at a Railway Station supporting the team there. Managed to throw my drone up to grab some shots.
Birkenhead North Train Station, Wirral. (First image is looking over towards the Mersey with Liverpool in the distance)
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