Undefeated Fort in India

[rohan_iiitc]

Hello Friends

This is one of the undefeated Fort in India. A fort in between the sea. And the best part is It has got sweet water in the middle of its fort surrounded by saline sea water.

EXIF:
Nikon D5000 with 18-55mm Kit lens

Focal : 18mm
Aperture : f/7.1
Shutter : 1/200
ISO : 1250
Exposure : -1
Flash : Flash did not fire

I was experimenting with high ISO and this shot was taken 15 mins after the sunset in the Arabian Sea. And few post production has been done in this image.

Please C&C so that I can learn more.

[S_Sanyal]

Janjira?

Great image. Nice colours and silhouette. Would have preferred a more off-centre composition though, maybe with less of the other elements in the sea. Try a tighter crop and see if it works better without losing much of the sunset.
My initial response in improving tones and composition.

[rohan_iiitc]

Thanks Sanyal

Murud Janjira is a sea shore in maharashtra, beautiful place with clear water.

A tighter crop wasnt not detailing properly. And the fort was standing alone with nohting to compose more in the shot.

Thanks
Rohan

[S_Sanyal]

I edited my post above to illustrate what I'm talking about, see if it works for you.

In any case, its a great picture as it is, since you invited responses, I gave mine

[rohan_iiitc]

Thanks sanyal

That was nice and small changes, will remember from next time.

[rohan_iiitc]

Hey sanyal

You have some pretty nice black n white pics in flickr.

By the way did u use photoshop to improve tones and composition?

[S_Sanyal]

Thanks, rohan.

A number of what you may have seen on flickr (the whole panchromatic collection) is shot on film...i print out contact sheets from the developer and try and recover tones lost in negative scans by using PS lightroom3 with hardcopies (the contact sheets) as authentic references. That way I know exactly what tones I got in as shot and reproduce them in scanned version.

But Lightroom is pretty much what I use for 99% of work on images. Its very useful in such cases, and yes, cropping is also convenient. Most importantly, its non-destructive to the original image file,as i can choose to export treated files separately.

P.S. Its very useful when shooting RAW as well on digital, its like an electronic negative, which gives you incredible control.

[rohan_iiitc]

Yes sanyal, I have used LR2 for the post prod of this image, i think i need to learn more of LR. And i totally respect the film, THe clarity film can give us, no othr digital can.

But what are the key component you use for a image in LR to edit.

Thanks.

[S_Sanyal]

Like I said, for film i use hard copies to bring back what is lost in scanning. Recovery of highlights is usually enough for the film shots. Most commonly for black and white workflow the levels/blacks/recovery/curves tools are very significant. Fill light also helps sometimes to bring out shadow details in very extreme light situations for digital b/w though it tends to give an annoying halo around edges if you're not careful, like its done here


For digital, i have a simple policy on PP, to be within the boundaries of what i remember of the scene as SEEN; as digital seldom replicates exactly that..which is what i did in cases like these..




as poignant as you see here, my RAW file inspite of all considerations in shooting had such flatness that needed to be worked upon to "bring back",through processing, what the camera couldnt exactly replicate in the shot i.e. the dynamic range.

[EOBeav]

With the right light and the right subject, you don't need to do a lot of editing. I agree with the suggestions about moving the fort out of the center. It's ok to leave well enough alone and just edit your overall image for contrast. You were also correct in exposing this one a stop down. I think you would have missed a lot of detail otherwise. Very nice image here.