Watching the Sunset

[epeyton@tampabay.rr.com]

I was waiting for a fireworks show to start and snapped this photo as the sun was going down. D-50, 1/1250, ISO 200, F/9 70mm, with a tripod and in post I cropped out the dock and saturated the color. Any feed back welcomed. I only got one good shot of the fireworks but there is one more of this that you can see them on my Flickr site.

[sunsetter]

Great shot. I really like the silhouttes of the ducks at the bottom. Sunsetts are my thing.

[sunsetter]

Are they ducks or cormorants?

[ELAY]

Evelyn --

Well composed; the birds, whatever they are, really do contribute.

Two little technical things. I don't know why, but the photo looks grainy in spots (especially if go to the large version on flickr). Look in the treetops where the sun comes in, and in the cloud layer just above the trees. Your ISO is only 200 so that shouldn't be the problem -- don't know what else it could be...sharpening maybe? You may want to run it through a noise-reduction program.

I also think the shot may be a little bit posterized near the sun. If you play with the dynamic range too much (curves and levels) sometimes the histogram gets all distorted and jaggy, and the computer runs out of colour shades to transition smoothly from one colour to another, resulting in posterization. It didn't look as evident on the original, so it could be a compression problem too. Have a look at your histogram -- if it looks like a comb, you may want to consider a slightly lighter touch on the contrast adjustments.

Cheers,

EL

[epeyton@tampabay.rr.com]

Thank you Sunsetter they are cormorants. Elay I noticed that grainess too. Tell me do you know if that could be caused by over using my scan disc? I have been taking a ton of photographs lately and I was wonder if those card wear out? I do rotate them. Just wondering.

[ELAY]

I don't know if that could be it. Others may.

You may know this, but I did learn a while ago that after you dump your pictures onto your hard drive, it is better to reformat the card rather than just to erase the pictures.

EL