On reflection

[jimmcd]

Hi guys. Its been a while but i am still here. Thanks to dps I am no longer shooting in auto and stick to manual as much as poss. Although I am enjoying my photography more I still struggle sometimes with getting the settings right. (still have tonnes to learn )
I quite liked the shot I am posting but as a novice I would love to know how I could have made it better and would appreciate your feedback (god or bad)
The shot was taken with my Sony Alpha a200 on which I had a Sigma 18-200 lense.
1/125s
f/10
ISO100
24-105@18mm

Like I said before, I am not sure if I should have used different settings?

Jim.

[RichardTaylor]

Technical;
Focus is OK. (Edit - the trees on the land (on the left) look a bit blurry - I'm not sure what is causing that )
The right hand side of the sky is completely over exposed (and some the water) (It's white not blue - also have a look at the histogram)
Possibly you need to use a graduated neutral density filter or shot multiple exposures and combine them when PPing.

Aesthetic;
Those big dust(?) spots in the sky are a major distraction. (clone them out.)
To me all that blank sky is a bit of a waste of space.
See how it looks with most of it cropped out (to a bit above the trees) and crop a bit of the water off the bottom so the pic appears to be more or less symmetrical. (it's an artistic decision that I think works better)

[jimmcd]

Thank you for your input Richard.

[SwissJon]

+1 on the dust spots.. Clean your lens and Sensor..

+1 on the use of an NDGrad,

I believe you used a CPL, in this instance I would have left it off, you've got the classic sky that happens when you use a CPL on a wide angle lens, where one side of the sky is a different shade to the other.. It's caused by the reflected light hitting the lens at different angles and being filtered differently.

The trees are under exposed.

I think if you put a 2 stop NDGrad over the sky, and a 1 stop upside down so it goes over the reflection of the sky in the water, making sure you have a clear area over the land and its reflection, make sure that the 1 stop difference between the two doesn't mean that the reflection is brighter than the sky, then you'd start to get detail on the trees in the foreground.. It would have been even better at dawn or dusk, or on a day when there's some little fluffy clouds in the sky.

I like this composition..

[EOBeav]

A thinner (and more expensive) polarizer works best on wide angle lenses. It will help remove the unevenness in your shot that SwissJon referred to. Having said that, you might want to keep in mind what a polarizer will and won't do for you. It will help bring out details in clouds and remove reflections from water surfaces, and it works best when you're at about a 90 degree angle from the sun. Personally, I would take this shot late in the evening to get better quality sunlight. I think this is a fantastic subject for a silhouette shot.

[mosgood]

I dunno, I kind of like the setting & the crop...very pastoral/peaceful scene. However, I would have used a polarizer filter. It would have also helped the sky a lot as far as evening it out. Plus a polarizer will make the clouds "pop." Please clone out the dust specks, they really ruin the image. And get that sensor &/or the lens cleaned asap!

Try shooting the same place (if you can) when the sun is lower on the horizon either close to sunrise or sunset. I know, sometimes it's shoot it as it is even in the harsh light becuase that's when we're there. :-) Gotta make the best of the situation.

Have fun!

Marla

[EOBeav]

Originally Posted by mosgood

However, I would have used a polarizer filter. It would have also helped the sky a lot as far as evening it out. Plus a polarizer will make the clouds "pop."

Gotta respectfully disagree here. A polarizer wouldn't have helped, given that there aren't really any clouds to improve. Also, if you're trying to create some symmetry with the reflections in the water, you don't want to reduce the reflections on the water. Maybe I'm missing something, but that's how I'm seeing it at this point. But feel free to post up a picture and prove me wrong. :-)

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[LenDog]

A CPL would helped the sky if properly adjusted, but the foreground is perfect as is. Hard call. I think an ND grad would've worked nicely.

What isn't a hard call are the dust spots, for god's sake man clean your camera sensor!

[Hussein Moussa]

I agree with the previous comments, the right side is overexposed, I think that the sunlight is responsible for that...try to process the sky...
In addition to that ,in my opinion, avoid concentrating on the sky when there are no clouds so that the lower part of the landscape will dominate in the photo...

But i like the shot and especially the reflections

[Krusty79]

I think you're close to getting a very good shot. I also think your settings were fine, that's why no one has brought that up.

+1 on cleaning your sensor
+1 on cropping out some of the sky

Other than that, there is too much dynamic range in the shot for your camera to capture it all correctly. Therefore, the trees and land are underexposed. You could try a ND grad, exposure blending, or even HDR to compensate for that. You have a strange transition in the sky from light blue to white that looks unusual to me. I'm not sure if that was SOOC or from some processing.

Lastly, if you're going for a reflection shot, I would also try to time it when the wind dies down and you have the glassy water.