Shipwreck

[Gebber]

This is the shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon. I know that the lighting could be better, it was taken at 2:30 in the afternoon.

40D with sigma 10-20mm at 10mm
ISO 100
f/4.5
1/250

Critique is appreciated

http://i639.photobucket.com/albums/uu113/Gebber09/Shipwreck2.jpg

[Stutterbug]

Wow cool! wish my beaches had awesome things like that. Looks great with the composition. Looks very lonely and peaceful. Only thing that bothers me is the halo (HDR?) other than that I really like this picture.

[Gebber]

Wow cool! wish my beaches had awesome things like that. Looks great with the composition. Looks very lonely and peaceful. Only thing that bothers me is the halo (HDR?) other than that I really like this picture.

I noticed that too. It isn't an HDR and I just did some minor color tweaks and that showed up. Not sure why? Still learning and I am using photoshop elements 6. Thanks for the comment.

[gcflora]

The halo is pretty normal in my experience (probably something to do with diffraction).

Edit: Looking at the photo further, I can't help but find the reflections distracting. A CPL might have been used to good effect here, but that is just my personal opinion -- still a good photo.

[Dbix]

the halo is probably from something you did with the shadow/highlights tool

[tonydee]

Diffraction effects tend to become noticable at small apertures, past f/11. This sort of thing is generally caused by some kind of sharpening / contrast enhancement algorithm, a category that includes shadow/highlights and tone mapping (the latter necessarily used with HDR).

Next issue had me stumped for several minutes. The rusting frame is noticably soft and out of focus, but there are a few reasonably contrasted points of bright light along it, which is usually a reasonable test of focus. Seemed contradictory. Then it struck me: you've sharpened very heavily with an inappropriately high contrast threshold, so only the brightest points have been tightened up. This ties in with the halo around the high contrast edge with the background.

f/4.5 is unnecessarily wide, limiting DOF. I think you've used that on the sand closest to you, sharpened the whole in post, but it hasn't worked out. Given you had much faster shutter speed than needed at that focal length (and only at ISO100 to boot), I'd suggest f/11. That way you could get the foreground reflection, frame and background all in focus. I would have liked it framed to include more of the reflection, as I find it as interesting as the subject.

Cheers, Tony

[Gebber]

Thanks Tony. I will probably be heading back to shoot it again in a couple weeks. I will make note of all your suggestions and I will be going either early morning or evening.

[LeuceDeuce]

the halo is probably from something you did with the shadow/highlights tool

+1

Increase the radius on the shadow slider until the halo is blended nicely.

Alternatively you can duplicate the layer, apply your s/h, then mask the original sky back in.

[KenVP]

This is one cool shot +2