Alaska Tidal Flats

Two favorite shots from an afternoon excursion to some relatively nearby tidal flats. I caught some ice crystals that must have formed as the water receded back out to sea, and then the sunset as the tide was flowing back, carrying quite a bit of ice with it.
Good thing I brought my snowshoes and crampons this day, otherwise I probably would have taken a very cold bath.

Sunset:
f/4.5
1/160
ISO 200
10mm (Sigma 10-20mm)
No adjustments to the photo

Ice:
f/11
1/60
ISO640
56mm (Canon 28-135mm)
Contrast and black point changed slightly

Have at it, all critiques are welcome!

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#1 is beautiful. A most unusual picture for us mid-Atlantic region folks. We don't see anything like this around here.
#2 is lacking depth of focus and is too obscure - can't make out what we are looking at. Guess you had to be there.

Congratulations on #1.

I love the first one. I think if you bumped the exposure up just the tinniest bit (please tell me you shot in RAW, please!) then it would help. Also, the horizon seems to be just the tiniest bit crooked (lower on the right). Maybe my head is on crooked, I can't tell at this point.

Wow. I love both of them. Agree that #2 could use a bit more DOF but I still like it how it is now.

I can see how #2 would be hard to understand if you have no idea what it is. Its always hard for me to get a good feeling of DOF when I'm in the field and looking at a small LSD screen. And of course when I get home and load them on my computer it turns out the DOF was razor thin

Juicebox, I did shot that photo in RAW, I'll play with it a bit more this afternoon if I have time, and now that you mention it, I think the horizon is a little crooked... that or you've got me seeing things

I wouldn't be surprised if you were; all that talk about LSD and all :P.

Anyway, use the ruler tool and check it out. The more I look at it, the more it appears that it is crooked.

Ok, round two:
Straightened the horizon, as well as small adjustments to black point, saturation and contrast. Thoughts on this one?

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You've just made very good into excellent!
Congratulations!

That is a great improvement.

I am guessing that the close-up shot is ice (or from an electron microscope), but there aren't enough clues about the subject of the image.

the second pic looks like a TS-E of glaciers

the first pic after being editted is GREAT!
great shots!

Great picture but I would sharpen it up quite a bit as it seems a bit soft.

that first image of the ice, is SICK..
and i would sell my mother for a 10mm lens. GREAT capture.

That last one with the straight horizon is really good, I like it mate!

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm sure I'll have many many more pictures of ice and snow from our winter up here in Alaska.

I do agree that the image is a bit soft, the one downfall of a wide angle that I've discovered: its really hard to tell if your subjects are in focus since they are so far away half the time.

Second shot is of just some odd ice formations, but I agree if you don't know what it is, it can be hard to understand the shot. Somewhat abstract, which is partially why I like it so much.

Photo_Joe wrote in post #6686415
...... the one downfall of a wide angle that I've discovered: its really hard to tell if your subjects are in focus since they are so far away half the time.......

It is also the strong point of a wide angle lens because they have a very large depth of field in comparison to normal and telephoto lenses. If you focus the lens on something at the hyperfocal distance, you can be confident that everything from half that distance to infinity will appear in focus.