Pompano Pier Sunrise

Curious as to which one is preferred (I'm not overly ecstatic about any of them myself). C+C welcome. 2nd shot is a 3 shot bracket HDR merge in LR.

I think I like the second one best and you've done a great job of not over doing the processing. Sometimes HDR turns me off when cranked up.

Well balanced shots and great color and Contrast!

Thanks for your feedback Guzzi. I prefer the second too. Like you, I am not a fan of the overcooked HDR and was happy how this one turned out (most of the session was single exposures with a 3 stop ND; I think I had removed it by this time, but I don't recall). I googled this pier and most images are of the overcooked variety. I kept some clipped shadows under the bridge in PP (actually very little was done other than the merge) which hopefully kept some of the scene's integrity.

This under the pier perspective was the last of the morning; had I known how cool the underside of the pier would turn out, I would have taken more from this spot. I plan to go back next weekend and see if I can improve upon the shot.

Thanks again.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the halo line along the rail. That needs to be cleaned up.

Nice images. I prefer the 1st one the best.
Cheers, Murray

Thanks WXYZ! I think I pushed the saturation in the first shot a little too much; but it helped out with the sun star.

Thanks for your comment Murray. That was more of what I had planned for the morning (using the pier to lead the eye toward the sun rising right over the end of it).

I like the second one as well, its composition seems to be more appealing. The lead in from the left into the frame plus the additional detail of the bridge add to it.
Maybe a slight crop from the right to balance it out a bit? It looks great regardless!

Thanks Daman. You're exactly right about the crop from the right. Too much empty space to that side. I will make that adjustment.

Here's two of the HDR with additional edits. First is with a large drop off the right and reduced orange luminance to bring out the sun a little more. Second is a small crop off the right, no luminence adjustment - though was tempted! Both have boosted Clarity and lens correction, which removed vignetting of the left side. Still need to deal with haloing fix....These were done on LR mobile on my iPhone so no idea how they look on a larger screen until tomorrow.

That looks great Josh, i prefer the first one with a little more punchy colors in the sky. The crop seems to work well too IMHO

Thanks again. The crop was a good idea. As much as I try to resist punching up the colors in the sky, I think you're right.

Wonderful shots. That must be one heck of a lens to handle that sunrise the way it did. What do you use for equipment? Thanks for sharing

Thanks JPeters. It's actually more the camera than the lens. It's a Nikon D810, which has exceptional dynamic range. In fact, the three shots used were -2 -1 and 0 out of 5 shot bracket where I didn't use the +1 and +2. It's why the sun isn't over exposed.

The lens is the Nikon 20 1.8G, which is pretty sharp and delivers nice colors.

Thanks again.