Thermal spa - composition and exposure

[Aleix]

Hello again!



I took this picture last week at a thermal spa. I just loved the extreme bright blue of the water, so I took some pics (and afterwards went bathing )

I'd like to hear your opinion about composition and exposure. Regarding composition, I had no other element of interest to place on a first plane, so I left the lower left shore (opinions on that? or would the water alone look interesting enough and shore distracts?). About exposure, I tend to underexpose pictures (either with my camera - Pentax K20D - which tends to slightly underexpose, or during PP because I find colours and contrast more interesting when underexposed); so I'd be thankful to know whether this looks OK or I should push exposure higher. Any other comment regarding other aspects like colour is also welcome...

EXIF data follows:

Pentax K20D
Sigma 17-70mm
AP 17mm matrix ISO100
1/125s f/10

Thanks in advance for giving your opinion

[Lightwriter]

I think the color looks good. As for comp. it's a photo of a building, some water, and hills in the background. It's nothing spectacular but it's a nice photo.

[Michael_2010]

IMHO, the brilliant blue water of the pool is the foreground point of interest. I would try to crop it in a manner that would invite the viewer to symbolically step off into that pool and join the other activity. The little bit of shoreline at the bottom of the frame pulls the eye in that direction, but then doesn't take it anywhere else.

[Krusty79]

I think you might be able to make better use of the foreground if you had taken the shot from a lower perspective, maybe a foot or two off the ground. I see that you have run into the same problem as I have using a polarizer on a wide angle shot - the polarizer creates a gradient in the sky because the wide angle causes light to come in from different directions.

I looked at a histogram of your image and it does not look underexposed. In fact, a lot of it is bunched towards the white end. I think all of the bright reflections off the water are causing that.

[Aleix]

Thanks everyone for your input so far.

Originally Posted by Krusty79

I think you might be able to make better use of the foreground if you had taken the shot from a lower perspective, maybe a foot or two off the ground. I see that you have run into the same problem as I have using a polarizer on a wide angle shot - the polarizer creates a gradient in the sky because the wide angle causes light to come in from different directions.

Good one there. About the polarizer, I did use one, as you noticed. In the last months I've not used it that often because of this gradient problem; sometimes it can even ruin my pic, especially when shooting at aprox. 45º-90º left or right of the direction of the sun, because the gradient goes from extremely pale blue to a rather deep blue, from side to side. I hadn't thought that could be because of the wide angle, but it does really make sense now that you say it. If you know any tips on how to reduce/avoid that - knowing how a PL filter works I don't think it can be completely avoided - let me know ...

[RecurrentNerve]

Skies are probably one of the easiest things to do retouch in post. Something as simple as cloning the darker colour across the entire image would only take a couple of minutes.

[Krusty79]

I searched for a way to get around the gradient problem, but I couldn't find a simple solution. It's hard to argue with the laws of physics I even did a Google search and found some work-arounds at this url - Circular Polarizer on Wide Angle Lens - Luminous Landscape Forum. Some work-arounds are done in PP like Recurrent suggests and some require that you take multiple shots with the polarizer at different strengths.

[Aleix]

Originally Posted by Krusty79

I searched for a way to get around the gradient problem, but I couldn't find a simple solution. It's hard to argue with the laws of physics I even did a Google search and found some work-arounds at this url - Circular Polarizer on Wide Angle Lens - Luminous Landscape Forum. Some work-arounds are done in PP like Recurrent suggests and some require that you take multiple shots with the polarizer at different strengths.

Thanks a lot for the infos Krusty!!!!! I'll take a look at it tomorrow, as I'm planning to spend the weekend photographing landscapes intensively and is important that from now on I pay more attention on how to use the PL filter in a less 'destructive' way