-= 6D Owners Unite! Discuss and post Photos!

FarmerTed1971 wrote in post #17033259
It has to be "real" to be great?

Photography is an "art"... An art of deception sometimes. If you're a purest and don't believe that composites are "real" then I feel sorry for you because you will be astounded as to how much you see is manipulated in some way.

yes, my feeling looking at a photograph at glance!

i don't need the explanations of 70-200 in the background and 16-35 in the foreground mixed together.

that already ruined it for me ... sorry, but each to their own

Sage wrote in post #17033386
sorry, but each to their own

That's no reason to go and call someone's work 'fake' in my opinion.

JoseCanseco wrote in post #17033389

you know what, after only posting roll-eyes without even a single little comment ...
who f**&^ cares these days anyways .. every snapshot is fake, every little picture is captured into another picture every little second pic's go viral around the world in milli seconds from iphones to FB, around the world ...\

But no, not this one, this one is real, a 70-200 moon, a 16-15 foreground, it's real and true art.

jbm7777 wrote in post #17032936
Love this forum, always keeping me humble. ^this is correct, 70-200 at the 200 end and then 17-40 for foreground. I scaled the moon down a bit just so it was at the edge of being too big, purposefully going for slightly larger than life.

ignore the haters. that's an awesome shot and certainly art. good work! I only asked because i'd love to produce a shot just like it! Keep it up

rubmifer wrote in post #17033421
That's no reason to go and call someone's work 'fake' in my opinion.

its not the picture it is showing at first glance to the world.

to people who don't know better, they might think, hey, wow, great shot.

But we all know its not. So to me its fake and that is why I dare to say it.

RMLPhoto wrote in post #17033428
ignore the haters. that's an awesome shot and certainly art. good work! I only asked because i'd love to produce a shot just like it! Keep it up

i am not a hater

rsharp76 wrote in post #17033277
Agreed, by that logic we shouldn't edit any of our photos. Composites have their place, especially when they are as well conceived and executed as that one. Great job!

Dlee13 wrote in post #17033325
There are many overdone composites but that image is definitely not one of them and I agree with everyone that the image truly looks great!

If people don't want to fully utilize DSLR's features such as RAW then they might as well save their money and stick to their phones that only shoot jpeg!

EverydayGetaway wrote in post #17033332
It's great because it's great. What a non-argument this is... by this logic there's no such thing as a "great" painting, since every painting is an artists interpretation of reality.

Thanks for all of the positive feedback, I was on the fence about this image so I'm happy it got a good response.

Sage wrote in post #17033386
yes, my feeling looking at a photograph at glance!

i don't need the explanations of 70-200 in the background and 16-35 in the foreground mixed together.

that already ruined it for me ... sorry, but each to their own

I appreciate this feedback as well, you see, this is my first composite. I've done regular shots, both natural light and strobist. I've done HDR, which I guess is a type of composite, and now I've done this. My previous attempts at composites came off as overtly fake and I am not a fan of that style. In order to have a successful composite in my opinion you need to be able to straddle the line of both reality and fiction. This was my first image that I felt did that. I'm attempting to be the best photographer I can be, and in order to do that I feel that I need to have at least a good understanding of multiple styles of both photography and picture editing. Therefore I like to experiment and learn about what I can do with an image, this is just another weapon in the arsenal so to speak.

My thoughts on the subject is that I want to take the best image I can for the situation. There are many times that I'll take an image thinking HDR will produce the best results but end up liking just one of the multiple shots I took planning to merge. Other times I'm attempting to get the shot perfect in camera.

One of the things that allures me to photography is the merging of both technology (which I'm a fan and a bit of a geek of) and art. If this image is a representation of both then I feel like it is a good representation of my vision. While you may not agree, as you said, to each their own. Thanks for the feedback regardless.

ptcanon3ti wrote in post #17033342
It's fantastic work! My question is: How did you match the size if the reflection so week to the size of the moon?

Outstanding work Sir!

Thank you! The moon was shot 1/200th at f8 I believe, the foreground was shot 30sec at f8. At a much longer exposure the water reflection grew and was a bit blown out which matched the size of the moon shot that I took. I had to tweak it ever so slightly (+7 or 10) in lightroom with a graduated filter but that was pretty much it.

Its in NJ so local for you I believe.

jbm7777 wrote in post #17033453
I appreciate this feedback as well, you see, this is my first composite. I've done regular shots, both natural light and strobist. I've done HDR, which I guess is a type of composite, and now I've done this. My previous attempts at composites came off as overtly fake and I am not a fan of that style.

thanks you take my opinion without being offended.

to me, these days, every single shot is massively manipulated and faked. So, wherever I can, a pure picture of the world as it is, thats a great image.

No need to fake pictures, making nature a bigger art then it already is if you look and stare at a full moon ...

jbm7777 wrote in post #17033453
Thanks for all of the positive feedback, I was on the fence about this image so I'm happy it got a good response.

I appreciate this feedback as well, you see, this is my first composite. I've done regular shots, both natural light and strobist. I've done HDR, which I guess is a type of composite, and now I've done this. My previous attempts at composites came off as overtly fake and I am not a fan of that style. In order to have a successful composite in my opinion you need to be able to straddle the line of both reality and fiction. This was my first image that I felt did that. I'm attempting to be the best photographer I can be, and in order to do that I feel that I need to have at least a good understanding of multiple styles of both photography and picture editing. Therefore I like to experiment and learn about what I can do with an image, this is just another weapon in the arsenal so to speak.

My thoughts on the subject is that I want to take the best image I can for the situation. There are many times that I'll take an image thinking HDR will produce the best results but end up liking just one of the multiple shots I took planning to merge. Other times I'm attempting to get the shot perfect in camera.

One of the things that allures me to photography is the merging of both technology (which I'm a fan and a bit of a geek of) and art. If this image is a representation of both then I feel like it is a good representation of my vision. While you may not agree, as you said, to each their own. Thanks for the feedback regardless.

Thank you! The moon was shot 1/200th at f8 I believe, the foreground was shot 30sec at f8. At a much longer exposure the water reflection grew and was a bit blown out which matched the size of the moon shot that I took. I had to tweak it ever so slightly (+7 or 10) in lightroom with a graduated filter but that was pretty much it.

Its in NJ so local for you I believe.

I agree with you on all counts. There is nothing at all wrong with compositing images...If you can get a better end result that makes YOU happy..that is all that really matters. After all...ALL digital photography is manipulated in one way or another.

Is that the Manasquan reservoir? I need to find a good location there...it's bigger than most people think. lol.

Sage wrote in post #17033483
No need to fake pictures, making nature a bigger art then it already is if you look and stare at a full moon ...

He is NOT "faking" pictures. He took BOTH REAL shots and combined them into one. Neither is "fake".

Did Picaso, Rembrandt, van Gogh, Ansel Adams...on and on..."fake" their images? No.

Sage wrote in post #17033429
its not the picture it is showing at first glance to the world.

to people who don't know better, they might think, hey, wow, great shot.

But we all know its not. So to me its fake and that is why I dare to say it.

Yeah, it is real and everyone but you seems to realize it. Cameras are unable to capture images the way our eyes see them (which often times is half the fun), there's absolutely nothing wrong with using a little creativity to recreate the seen more accurately than what you were able to capture straight from the camera. OP took both pictures himself and overlayed them on to each other, in no way is that cheating or being "fake".

Sage wrote in post #17033483
thanks you take my opinion without being offended.

to me, these days, every single shot is massively manipulated and faked. So, wherever I can, a pure picture of the world as it is, thats a great image.

No need to fake pictures, making nature a bigger art then it already is if you look and stare at a full moon ...

Get off your high horse. If you don't want to create composites than it's your business, but don't belittle anyone else's work for it, history will be the judge of who's got the more powerful image and to my eyes that composite is one of the best I've seen on this site in a good while.

You can't label art as "fake", all art is technically "fake". Art is a persons interpretation of a subject or scene, it's never going to please everyone, that's what makes it fun. But when you go and try to belittle someone's work because you disagree with their methods that's just silly... it's about the end product not the means by which you get to it. This is why there are excellent published images out there which have been taken with iPhones and cheap P&S cameras.

Sage wrote in post #17033251
why is it great? it's fake
you make people believe its real in one shot, but its not. end of story.

well, there's also composite images where the background and foreground are blended (I have plenty). I guess people dont really complain that it's fake, but composite with objects is kinda another deal. My BIL is happy with his composite wedding photos (fake backgrounds), but I wouldnt be happy with them (I took on location wedding photos).

I am ok with removing objects to clean up an image, but composite to add clouds, dramatic skies, fake stars, or moon in this case, not my style. Doesnt mean it's bad, just means I prefer realistic photos.

I got a 600mm lens to try to create these dramatic moon/sun shots

I have some nightscapes that would be great if the moon were there in some dominating fashion, but I'm afraid trained eyes would rat me out

Charlie wrote in post #17033575
well, there's also composite images where the background and foreground are blended (I have plenty). I guess people dont really complain that it's fake, but composite with objects is kinda another deal. My BIL is happy with his composite wedding photos (fake backgrounds), but I wouldnt be happy with them (I took on location wedding photos).

I am ok with removing objects to clean up an image, but composite to add clouds, dramatic skies, fake stars, or moon in this case, not my style. Doesnt mean it's bad, just means I prefer realistic photos.

I got a 600mm lens to try to create these dramatic moon/sun shots

I have some nightscapes that would be great if the moon were there in some dominating fashion, but I'm afraid trained eyes would rat me out

Except that in this case it is realistic... my understanding is that he took a shot of the moon with his 70-200mm, then from the same location took a shot with his 16-35mm and combined them in post to keep the details of the super moon... in my mind that is far from cheating. Where I am the moon looked about that big, so I don't see that as cheating at all, it's recreating the scene as he envisioned it, which is what art is imo...

EverydayGetaway wrote in post #17033593
Except that in this case it is realistic... my understanding is that he took a shot of the moon with his 70-200mm, then from the same location took a shot with his 16-35mm and combined them in post to keep the details of the super moon... in my mind that is far from cheating. Where I am the moon looked about that big, so I don't see that as cheating at all, it's recreating the scene as he envisioned it, which is what art is imo...

Sometimes the camera can't quite reproduce what our eyes see. The moon in person looks bigger than a 17-40 will make it look. I know our eyes are supposed to be approximately 35mm but by focusing on a specific location it will make the subject feel larger or smaller. Again, the goal here was to create an image that bordered on the surreal. I'm assuming by all of this conversation I succeeded. I could have scaled the moon shot down a bit to make it more photo-realistic but I wanted to emphasize the "supermoon".

To make up for it and to try to get my photographer card back from the composite haters, I'll post up a shot that was taken in a single exposure with basically no photoshop. I believe I upped the exposure by .15.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/okpU​kX