River Tamar Boat Wreck / Saltash Bridge

[swiftmed]

Hey folks,

After having received advice on a previous shot of the Tamar Bridge, a lot of people suggested getting a different perspective. I headed to the other side of the river this week and found a nice little boat wreck pertruding above the water line and thought it would make a nice foreground for the bridge.

The result is this picture. Again it was a bit of a gloomy day, so the sky didn't do much to help the picture, but I've done a little bit of post-production, just playing around with Aperture's settings etc and have come up with the following.



Aperture: f/11.0
Shutter: 1/250
ISO: 100
Focal: 27mm

Please critique as much or as little as possible. thank you for your time.

[dvtldav]

Here is my take on the photo for what it is worth since I am pretty new at this myself. To me the boat & water looks underexposed but if you bring the exposure up in that area you will blow out the sky. This is where a graduated neutral density filter would help. You could also apply a gradient in PP if your program has it. I also think it needs to be cropped a little more. Some from the top & a little from each side.
I think it is a nice capture it just needs a little tweaking.

If I get a chance I might see what I can do with it in LR if you don't care.

Dave

[SwissJon]

Hi Andrew

Something a lot of people forget is that not every picture needs to describe a nice summers day. Were the clouds quite heavy? The thing is, I think this subject would look really good with some dark moody clouds.. With the sunken boat, the whole mood of of the picture will really change, you might then think about a black and white conversion. If you'd taken this in the evening, the sun would have cast shadows on themselves, enhancing the effect.

Unfortunately the angle you've chosen has meant the horizon cuts the picture in half. If you'd managed to get the camera closer to the water, then the horizon would go down a bit, zooming in a bit on the boat would make it more promenant in the picture. and if you can then capture some dark moody clouds you'd really have a really interesting capture.

Be careful about getting straight lines across your frame.. If the boat hadn't been there, I'd suggest you moved closer to the bridge so you could get it at an angle.

You've got a half boat on the left side of this, you need to insoect the edge of your frame when you compose totry to avoid things like that.

I'll tell you what though, you're improving

[jdepould]

Wade into the water and get nice and close to the shipwreck.

While that would probably make a pretty cool image, it isn't totally practical.

Try shooting this when there's some weather coming in, preferably toward the end of the day.

OR shoot this with a lot less sky. To me, this image is very much "I was here and had my camera." It doesn't really speak to me, it doesn't have a sense of drama or graphic composition.

[swiftmed]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your feedback sir. I agree the boat is very underexposed. I wanted to get a little closer to the water, but the slipway was very - er - slippery, and a bit too dangerous for me to attempt. To be fair, Im sure I could have found a way to get a little closer, but I was in a bit of a rush. I will certainly look at the graduated neutral density filter - somebody else mentioned one of those to me recently (think it was actually Jon).

Jon - again, sincerely thanks of your input. Love your idea bout the moody clouds, I will have a play around in my software to see what I can come up with. I've just did a black and white conversion, and did a bit of cropping as suggested, and here is the result. I think it looks much better, what do you think?

I will also keep in mind the idea of going down when the sun is setting too. When we get a little better weather, I shall give it a shot.



Jamie - thanks for your input. When the tide goes out a little more, Ill try and get a little closer to the boat, and see what we can get. Ill post results here when I manage to get down there again.

[dvtldav]

I like that crop much better and I really kind of like the b&w conversion.

[swiftmed]

Thanks mate. appreciate it.

[Krusty79]

I like the fact you used the wrecked boat for foreground interest, but it is pretty dark and small. Like jdepould said, I want to see the shot taken closer to the wreck so I can see it better. Also, if you shoot at dawn/dusk, the sky won't be so bright relative to the water, so you might be able to get both exposed correctly.

If you keep shooting during the day, you are going to keep running into dynamic range issues where your camera cannot capture the entire range in a scene. You could try downloading a trial version of Photomatix if you want to try some HDR. Just try to use some subtlety. Or you could look into exposure blending, which is something I need to investigate as well.