C&C please!

[faithb]

Hi I am looking for some help! I am very new to SLR photography, and am learning heaps as I go along with my trusty manual! but I am struggling a bit in low light situations. I like to shoot landscapes, and am lucky enough to live in a beautiful part of the world :) my favourite time of day is sunrise and sunset when the mountains catch the light, but I am really not capturing it very well! :o

Here is a shot I took at the weekend, shot settings were shutter 1/100, aperture f/7.1 and ISO 200. I would be most grateful for any advice/suggestions anyone may have...

[cryforashadow]

I think you should use a graduated ND filter because the sky is properly exposed but the land is underexposed which makes the picture look weird. But I like the orange color.

[faithb]

That makes sense, thanks for the advice :)

[griptape]

Buy a tripod. ;)

[LeuceDeuce]

Without a GND, as suggested in an earlier post, you could opt to make an HDR image of this scene. I would suggest moving in such a way that the branches, and tops of trees in the very foreground of the scene were removed.

[zircon100]

I am new here too; so take my advice with a large grain of salt. I tried re-post-processing your image using Photoshop RAW tools. I made some progress in high-lighting the foreground using the Fill light, Exposure and Tone Curve tools. However attempts at reducing the saturation of over-saturated colors using the Contrast and HSL/Grayscale tools, were not completely successful in my hands. If the colors in this image were already boosted by post-processing, go back to your original and try the Fill Light/Exposure tools FIRST; then boost your colors.

[aram535]

I have to agree with a couple of the posters. A longer focal point or a bit of movement would have gotten that shrubbery out of your way. Although I really like something in the foreground in the hyperfocal range, the close by object has to be "something" twigs don't count.

HDR is probably the best way to go, but I wouldn't call it HDR. I would call it a rescue of a hang-able capture.

[faithb]

Thanks for all the advice guys I appreciate y'all taking the time to comment :)

[patlannon]

I agree that the image should be cropped, so I took it to PS, cropped it as much as possible. Next I really knocked up the curves to bring out the foreground. Hope you like it.

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd9/patlannon/Landscape.jpg

[Flo]

^ Yipes.that is a tad over PP Pat:eek:

[patlannon]

Sorry Gail, I see what you mean I don't want to do too much more pp. So how is this

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd9/patlannon/Landscape-1.jpg

[LeuceDeuce]

There is too much detail lost in the edits.

[LeuceDeuce]

Here's an edit that shows the difference in the image when you get rid of that foreground clutter. Don't take that to mean you shouldn't have foreground elements in your landscape shots. If you can add an interesting element to the foreground it only strengthens the overall image. Adding just any bits of twigs to the foreground doesn't qualify though, and the cleaner shot is more appealing to me.

Grain added because the compression artifacts were very prominent.
_

[patlannon]

yes I'm afraid that's true Deuce. Usually I can fix most of my problem shots with levels and curves in CS3. This is one trime that it isn't the case.

[faithb]

ok i get it - no twigs!! :lol:

I can definitely see the improvement in your edit Deuce, thanks for taking the time.

I think I need to get my hands on photoshop, and learn how to do hdr while I'm at it....

[LeuceDeuce]

We're all here to help :)

Yes HDR can be a very powerful tool when shooting scenes like this. You'll create some really sureal images with it, and then you'll settle into the look you like best. Enjoy the process!

[aram535]

But don't over do it either. HDR is good, but not the solution -- and I can see a lot of people use it to do something different. Most of those shots I personally hate.