First landscape C&C

Hi all

This is the result of my first time going out to get a landscape photo. Its not a stunning image and I'd very much like to improve on it over the summer.

Taken from the top of a hillfort yesterday about half an hour from sunset. Apart from the badly blown highlights where the sun is, what else is wrong with it?

Don't think the highlights are a problem.....it is the sun after all and the transition from highlight to sky and clouds is quite gradual/smooth. Composition is good...the little tree adds a lot to this as it breaks up the continuous horizontal...adds interest.
I would only crop some of the foreground...up to the bottom of the clump below the tree nearest the bottom edge.

Im no landscape specialist but maybe you could try to lower the camera to the ground. Keeping those little flowers in the shot would give an interesting foreground while limiting the boring grass midframe.

Fixable in photoshop although I am not all that hot in PS myself. If you permit Image editing in your profile, those of us interested can post suggested fixed images.

Thanks guys, every time I ask for feedback it's always about cropping! More learning to do there I guess!

I've enabled editing now.

Thanks

To illustrate my comment and suggestion above, I just cropped some on the bottom and side (maintained your aspect ratio) and sharpened the foreground a bit:

Spike44 wrote in post #16862870
To illustrate my comment and suggestion above, I just cropped some on the bottom and side (maintained your aspect ratio) and sharpened the foreground a bit:

Thanks Spike! That's a lot better.

I'll take the advice on board for next time.

Paul

Sorry about the delay, got caught up in another forum. Shadow/highlight tool plus some burn in with mottled selection of burn tool. Just quick and dirty as example. More could be done to bring shades of clouds to like colors.

advaitin wrote in post #16863014
Sorry about the delay, got caught up in another forum. Shadow/highlight tool plus some burn in with mottled selection of burn tool. Just quick and dirty as example. More could be done to bring shades of clouds to like colors.

Wow! I love what you did with the burn tool. I'm going to give that a go.

Many many thanks

Paul

I think it is pretty good. I like the contrast of the flowers with the darker foreground, but I would open up the deepest blacks in the foreground just a little. In playing with it I also darkened the darks in the sky, but it introduced a bit of haloing around the tree. I use luminosity masks and wonder if you did something around the tree to lighten it that also lightened the sky.

Also lightened the foreground light tones just a tad.

A second exposure for the blown out area would have been nice. Usually a good idea to bracket these types of shots just in case, even if you have no intention of doing an HDR.

I like the hills on both the left and right, they help frame and balance the comp. I think the one on the left is particularly important in preventing the scene looking like it's dipping to the left too much. It would have been nice to be able to separate the sun and tree a bit more by moving to the left, but I suspect it would have adversely affected the foreground.

Did you try more shots with the sun a little lower and a bit more behind the clouds? Or a least did you wait around to see if the light would get even better or just take the shot and move on?

I often like to get really low to the ground, but in this case I'm not sure I would have done that - I wouldn't want the tree protruding more into the sky, nor would I want to lose more of the mid-ground behind the line of trees.

ejenner wrote in post #16864002
I think it is pretty good. I like the contrast of the flowers with the darker foreground, but I would open up the deepest blacks in the foreground just a little. In playing with it I also darkened the darks in the sky, but it introduced a bit of haloing around the tree. I use luminosity masks and wonder if you did something around the tree to lighten it that also lightened the sky.

Also lightened the foreground light tones just a tad.

A second exposure for the blown out area would have been nice. Usually a good idea to bracket these types of shots just in case, even if you have no intention of doing an HDR.

I like the hills on both the left and right, they help frame and balance the comp. I think the one on the left is particularly important in preventing the scene looking like it's dipping to the left too much. It would have been nice to be able to separate the sun and tree a bit more by moving to the left, but I suspect it would have adversely affected the foreground.

Did you try more shots with the sun a little lower and a bit more behind the clouds? Or a least did you wait around to see if the light would get even better or just take the shot and move on?

I often like to get really low to the ground, but in this case I'm not sure I would have done that - I wouldn't want the tree protruding more into the sky, nor would I want to lose more of the mid-ground behind the line of trees.

Thanks for this, I love what you did with the foreground.

To answer your questions, I'm not sure what happened around the tree, probably something I did in ACR had an adverse reaction. I did hang around for another 20 mins after this was taken, but the sun disappeared into the low murky cloud and everything looked a bit muddy.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to help me with this, I will go away and try to assimilate your advice and tips into my next effort. It's great to receive this sort of detailed critique and advice!

Thanks again

Paul

What is your subject? Your entire bottom half of the photo is lacking. There are some flowers, but they are minimized. If you lower your camera you could give them more prominence in the shot and a stronger foreground. The tree sticking up is out of place and detracts from the photo. I like the look of the rolling green land but it's stuffed behind that line of dead trees/shrubs/whatever and the lone tree. That, plus either some haze or flare from shooting into the sun causes the most interesting part of this photo to be hidden away. The sky is overexposed a bit much for this shot. This is going to happen shooting into the sun and sometimes it works but not here. A good filter for the sky would have been nice to try to reduce that overexposure and bring some color back in.

For all that I think the lack of a clear subject or just a general confusion about what you want to show is the worst thing about this shot.

Numenorean wrote in post #16867117
What is your subject? Your entire bottom half of the photo is lacking. There are some flowers, but they are minimized. If you lower your camera you could give them more prominence in the shot and a stronger foreground. The tree sticking up is out of place and detracts from the photo. I like the look of the rolling green land but it's stuffed behind that line of dead trees/shrubs/whatever and the lone tree. That, plus either some haze or flare from shooting into the sun causes the most interesting part of this photo to be hidden away. The sky is overexposed a bit much for this shot. This is going to happen shooting into the sun and sometimes it works but not here. A good filter for the sky would have been nice to try to reduce that overexposure and bring some color back in.

For all that I think the lack of a clear subject or just a general confusion about what you want to show is the worst thing about this shot.

Thanks for the feedback, it's certainly not the most pleasing shot but I learned from it thanks to everyone that's commented. I understand what you are saying about finding a more definite subject.

Thanks

Paul