sunset of frozen, snowy farmland

[Hyronimous]

I've made this picture a couple of days ago and have a couple of questions

[
flying over odijk by Hyronimous, on Flickr
xposure 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture f/10.0
Focal Length 20 mm
ISO Speed 400

1) i upped the iso a little to get to 1/20 because i wanted a wide DOF, was wondering if it would be even better with 800 ISO and 1/40.

2) i added clarity, vibrance and contrast to the picture and brought the exposure of the sky down with a little over 2 stops. would it be better to expose more for the sky?

3) general advice is also welcome off course

I have 3 more pictures like this posted with the same general feel but different compositions:
Sunset over frozen water
frozen path to the farm
Weteringsdijk

[dlambert]

Personally, I like "Sunset over frozen water" better - both in terms of composition and exposure. I think this one is a little under-exposed. Very neat subject, though. These shots do a good job of putting you in the scene. I can't decide if I like the bright red contrail or not. The pink-ish hue in the other photo seems more natural.

[digirebelva]

the sky is okay, but you need to bump up the ground a couple of stops at least...this is one of those shots where a GND filter or HDR would have benefited you because of the wide range in stops here between the dark ground & lighter sky...

[navcom]

In landscapes, image quality is everything. You should base your camera settings on that.

First, always use a tripod for landscapes unless it's just physically not possible.

Second, always try to use the lowest ISO your camera can muster. This will give you the least grain and best quality.

Third, set your aperture for your depth of field. I know, you are probably thinking "what about the shutter speed?". Well, in most landscape photography shots, shutter speed is irrelevant (unless you are trying to stop motion from severe wind or moving water). Just set your aperture and let the shutter speed fall where it may. And since you are using a tripod, camera shake is not a problem.

I agree with the other poster that you should use an ND grad filter for this scene to tame the dynamic range.

One other thought. Your image might have looked better in landscape orientation versus portrait orientation. With the lines in your image, portrait makes it a bit squished.

Hope that helps!

[mshockley]

I like "sunset over frozen water". Looks great, the collors are vibrant, it leads my eye right into the frame, your snow is nice and white. I think I would clone out what I'm guessing is plane exhaust in a couple spots of the sky maybe? Just one thing I noticed. Otherwise, that image is my personal favorite.

[Hyronimous]

thanks all for the comments. It helped me and am actually looking into the HDR now. Luckily i shot the pictures in RAW so i still have some room to wiggle.

[digirebelva]

you have SOME wiggle room, but the area to the bottom right is too dark to effectively recover much without introducing a very noticable amount of noise in the image even using the raw file.

[Benny Pan]

i think the foreground of all the pics need to be brightened a bit and added more details.