14th Century Castle

[mpaul73]

Here is one I took yesterday at sunset. It's Craigmiller Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was built in the 14th C.

It is a composite but can you tell?

Regards
Martin.


http://www.imgmag.org/images/mpaul73/134_3429xweb.jpg

[Leighow]

NOTE: I did not remember that it was a composite when I rated the image. Now I understand why the sky is a bit out of sync. HOWIE

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The clouds feel a bit dizzying about mid-way across the image.

Otherwise this is far and away the best image that I have every seen you post. Like it blows your earlier turret away -- but that earlier image help to ready you for this opportunity.

Great images demand great and special light and you bring it to us in spades here. The illumination and textures on the stonework are gorgeous. The lack of urban clutter (as we would see around Edinburgh castle) is a blessing.

What castle please ? Did you use a tripod ?

Congratulations. Take a bow. Very, very professional.

HOWIE

[ilya]

I can't really tell its a composite, but i'm at the laptop right now. What did you do?

Like this very much.

[runrigger]

Brilliant lighting - the sort you can only get in Scotland, although it usually only lasts for a very few minutes before the rain comes!!
I'm very biased, it's my favourite place in the whole world.
Keep bringing shots like this to us please.

[stopbath]

mpaul73 wrote:
Here is one I took yesterday at sunset. It's Craigmiller Castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was built in the 14th C.

It is a composite but can you tell?

Regards
Martin.


Well, the sky does not really seem to match.

The castle is lit by setting or rising sun from the left (shadow on castle from nearby tree), but the sky looks like it's lit by a low sun (but not setting or rising as there is little or no colour cast in the clouds) from behind the castle.

Try using a sunset with the sun off camera to the left.

Other than that, it is very dramatic, and very lovely shot of the castle.

[new girl on the bloc]

it is indeed an interesting composite, but perhaps one for effect only since the sky, as stopbath has said, does not match the way the sun is striking the castle (which is gorgeous ;))

[Man-Fai Wong]

Actually, the sky looks totally unrealistic. Forget the match against the castle. There's no way (I can think of) for the sky to look like that from left to right.

Also, I think the composition itself would be better w/ a wider scope. It's too tight horizontally while showing lots of sky above. Probably, it'd work better to extend the left side to show a few more trees.

FWIW, this is probably one good example of why a good wideangle lens (or converter) is needed, instead of resorting to photostitching everytime.

_Man_

[new girl on the bloc]

Man-Fai Wong wrote:
Actually, the sky looks totally unrealistic. Forget the match against the castle. There's no way (I can think of) for the sky to look like that from left to right.

Also, I think the composition itself would be better w/ a wider scope. It's too tight horizontally while showing lots of sky above. Probably, it'd work better to extend the left side to show a few more trees.

FWIW, this is probably one good example of why a good wideangle lens (or converter) is needed, instead of resorting to photostitching everytime.

_Man_


i see skies, such as the one in the photo, here in oregon all the time. in fact, the skies and cloud formations here are so unusual at times that they nearly look unreal.

[Man-Fai Wong]

new girl on the bloc wrote:
i see skies, such as the one in the photo, here in oregon all the time. in fact, the skies and cloud formations here are so unusual at times that they nearly look unreal.

It's not just the cloud formations. It's the colors themselves, particularly the blue in the sky. It looks like there's a diagonal seam in the sky near the middle just above the castle.

_Man_

[new girl on the bloc]

Man-Fai Wong wrote:
new girl on the bloc wrote:
i see skies, such as the one in the photo, here in oregon all the time. in fact, the skies and cloud formations here are so unusual at times that they nearly look unreal.

It's not just the cloud formations. It's the colors themselves, particularly the blue in the sky. It looks like there's a diagonal seam in the sky near the middle just above the castle.

_Man_


o.k., i see what you are referring to, with the seam.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I like the Castle a lot in the low (near sunset?) lighting.

But I think the fake sky is out of place, it detracts from the natural lighting.

It's funny, Petersens Photographic had on it's cover an image of some people in a "Sahara" like Middle East desert (I forget where) with this dramatic blue and clody sky.

Then inside the image is explained in an article on how to make your images more dramatic by pasting in a better sky,. they seemed quite proud of there cover image...

...when in fact the cover looked ridiculous!

It was so obviously a manipulation,. that was trying to look real! If the Desert had clouds like that,. it wouldn't be a desert! The colors in the sand reflected the stark and harsh lighting of the real sky we could not see.

[new girl on the bloc]

CyberDyneSystems wrote:
I like the Castle a lot in the low (near sunset?) lighting.

But I think the fake sky is out of place, it detracts from the natural lighting.

It's funny, Petersens Photographic had on it's cover an image of some people in a "Sahara" like Middle East desert (I forget where) with this dramatic blue and clody sky.

Then inside the image is explained in an article on how to make your images more dramatic by pasting in a better sky,. they seemed quite proud of there cover image...

...when in fact the cover looked ridiculous!

It was so obviously a manipulation,. that was trying to look real! If the Desert had clouds like that,. it wouldn't be a desert! The colors in the sand reflected the stark and harsh lighting of the real sky we could not see.

i think with our ability to do such (quick and easy) manipulations today we may be going for the bold and dramatic look. but sometimes it does not quite work.

[Man-Fai Wong]

new girl on the bloc wrote:
i think with our ability to do such (quick and easy) manipulations today we may be going for the bold and dramatic look. but sometimes it does not quite work.


Unfortunately, I think it's usually quite hard (and nearly impossible) to do it convincingly well. Photo enhancement/touch-up is one thing, but major manipulations are quite difficult to pull off. The human eye is extremely hard to fool most of the time if given a little time to examin the image.

_Man_

[MiG82]

The two suns in the photo do not sit well with my mind. :) It's really obvious that the sky is lit from a completely different angle and it throws me off a lot. The tone and colour look very nice though and it would look awesome if the scene made physical sense.

[mpaul73]

Ok thanks for all the comments on this one. Much appreciated! I still like the sky though I do agree that it looks suspect, especially when you know! I posted this one on Photo.net too and it done rather well. No one commented on the sky. Makes me wonder if anyone really noticed?! Here's the link:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1811527

Regards
Martin.

[dp1l]

Hello

My very uneducated opinion!!

The light in the two photos is different, but I quite like the photo - it looks a bit surreal, and has a bit of a 3d effect