My first camping sunrise shot - does this work?

[NikD300]

Last weekend was my first ever camping experience and boy I am blown away. Except for its being humid/hot during the day, evening/next day early morning was something one should experience. Well, anyways, got up early (5.45am) to capture some early sun to shoot some sunrise picture thru' the woods. Aim is to capture the sun rays over our tents.

- What I am particularly interested to know is if the composition worked?
- Could you have shot in a different way?
- What else could have been done here?
- Any suggestions on making this more effective/appealing?



EXIF:
Nikon D300
Nikon 18-200 mm lens @ 31mm
1/60 sec
F5.6
ISO 400

Please share your comments. Feel free to edit the picture.

EDIT: This is SOOC. No adjustments were made on this.

[IABoomer]

I don't think you could change your angle in order to get the rays of light to hit your tent, so short of using some kind of ephemeris and setting up your campsite accordingly, you did what you could with what you had.

The problem for me is, the main idea of this shot is the sunlight coming through the trees over your campsite, and with the bright patch of green where the sun falls, I'm drawn away from the campsite. The entirety of the left side of the image pulls me further away.

What I thought worked for this was to crop it vertically and get rid of the left side of the image. You still get the sun and some rays, but your eyes aren't locked onto the green of the left so much and you can jump between the sun and the tent.

A little tweak to exposure and some fill lighting to bring up the tent, some vibrance to punch the colors up, and a little vignetting to darken the corners and keep you in the middle of the image results in this.

[NikD300]

Very impressive result . I had the same doubt of loosing the tent in the shadow but didnt want to do any PP on the raw picture until I know exactly how I can frame the picture. I like what you did here. However, I think we are loosing most of the rays (which I think adds interest to the picture) with the portrait orientation. May be a little bit more room to the left might be better.

Also, I did shoot a different angle just to get those rays "seem" to be falling on the tent for that added interest. However, the tent is not fully visible from this angle. What do you think of this composition?



With the PP'ing, I am planning to add more brightness to the tent to draw the attention.

WHICH COMPOSITION WORKED FOR THIS SHOT BETTER? FIRST OR SECOND?

[IABoomer]

The second works much better, IMO. The beam of light draws you toward the tent instead of away from it. I don't mind the tent being slightly occluded by the leaves. A little fill lighting to bring in the foreground detail, a little warmth to yellow up the sun rays some and I think you'll have a strong image.

[NikD300]

Thanks a bunch IABoomer. Here is the PP'd version of the rawfile with added punch as per suggestions. How does this look to you?