Loch at Sunset

[mpaul73]

Critique anyone?

I took it at my local Loch on Sunday. Same time as the swan photo.

Regards
Martin Paul.


http://www.imgmag.org/images/mpaul73/LochxatxSunset.jpg

[Laziferous]

Outstanding Martin! I absolutely love it!

The sky, the rocks in the water, the reflection, the tree on the right... all of it. I love it.

In case you forgot... I love it.

[iwatkins]

Very very nice. I like that a lot.

Very minor comment would be I would prefer it a little lighter to give more detail on the foreground rocks in the water. Even so, this doesn't really detract.

Cheers

Ian

[stoneylonesome]

beautiful, Love the sky and reflections nice job :)

[mpaul73]

Laziferous wrote:
Outstanding Martin! I absolutely love it!

The sky, the rocks in the water, the reflection, the tree on the right... all of it. I love it.

In case you forgot... I love it.

Thanks Laz! Glad you LOVE IT so much! :)

Martin.

[BobG3]

This is truly beautifull!! Wish I could make a picture like this..I like the contracting blue colors..and the depth the picture gets with that rocks. Great photo!!

[Leighow]

Nice shot.

[mpaul73]

Thanks for the great feedback so far. I decided to try and get a little more detail in the rocks and came up with this. As you can see I played about with the colour a little and a softer focus. I prefer this version. How about you?

Martin Paul.


http://www.imgmag.org/images/mpaul73/LochxatxSunsetx1.jpg

[iwatkins]

Much better. That looks a lot more natural to me. :)

Cheers

Ian

[mpaul73]

iwatkins wrote:
Much better. That looks a lot more natural to me. :)

Cheers

Ian

Thanks Ian, I agree. Here's another taken on the same day. I had to do quite a lot of PS work to get the detail in the rocks. What do you think?

Martin.


http://www.imgmag.org/images/mpaul73/LochxNo.3.jpg

[Laziferous]

I like that one equally, or more than the first. I'm very impressed Martin. Just beautiful.

[CyberDyneSystems]

These are stunning... :)

Given the three images and the particular "problem" you faced with the darkness of the foreground,. you may want to look into a Neutral Density "split" graduated filter. It would have helped to give a proper exposure by allowing you to make the foreground brighter without blowing out the sky.

I have had really bad luck with sunsets for the same reasons. (I have nothing as nice as yours! ) so I have been eyeing the "split" ND for a while.

[Matzzzy]

They are all stunning!!
I'll go sunset-hunting this weekend :)
Will probably end up with nothing, but the search is fun too.

.:Matz:.

[iwatkins]

Martin,

The additional shot is stunning. Better than the first one may I say. Colouring is great and you have a fan shaped bit of cloud over a fan shaped bit of water which works very well.

As CDS said, a graduated neutral density filter may help your quest here. I use them for most of my sunset shots and usually get good results.

But saying that, I never usually had any problem getting detail back from dark foregrounds when shooting RAW. Basically, as long as the sky isn't blown I can usually do something with it. But using a grad ND doesn't half save some processing time :)

Cheers

Ian

[mpaul73]

CyberDyneSystems wrote:
These are stunning... :)

Given the three images and the particular "problem" you faced with the darkness of the foreground,. you may want to look into a Neutral Density "split" graduated filter. It would have helped to give a proper exposure by allowing you to make the foreground brighter without blowing out the sky.

I have had really bad luck with sunsets for the same reasons. (I have nothing as nice as yours! ) so I have been eyeing the "split" ND for a while.

Yeah I know, one of those filters would come in very useful especially for shots like this. That's second on my priority list at the moment as I really need to get a tripod! I find myself having to rest the camera on walls and rocks and even my knee to get the thing steady! lol

Cheers
Martin.