SOOC vs Tone Mapping

[Phoenix_Jackson]

For several times, I take a shot and had this strong feeling that it needs some enhancements. But then posted as SOOC vs Edited, 90% of the time the SOOC wins. Which makes me wonder, is my "photography eye" just blind?

Here's one of those spots that I just happen to pass by and just couldn't resist taking. If you, good people, would humor me on this, I'd like to divide the task.

First, I'd want to share my personal critique on my own shot (but with a big possibility of being bias since I really like the scene), and ask if you agree with me or not.
1. The sky is over-exposed for a considered night shot (honestly, it didn't look this bright when I clicked. It didn't even look like that on my LCD preview).
2. The city lights are too huge and a little distracting. A little less would've shown more details of the already coming out buildings.
3. Reflections are fine. But the water again, looks more like a 4 pm shot rather than a 5 am one.
4. It's either the tree is distracting or the city is distracting.
5. Is that mud?
The first four can be easily fixed with post-processing. But at this point, I'm a little hesitant. I want to know from you guys (having much more experience than I), if you strongly agree that the image desperately needs editing, or is it good enough that I might just ruin it?

And second, is majorly about the 4th critique. With long exposures other parts of water is fine for me. But the foreground is atrocious! There's supposed to be some turbulence in there that I really want to get some details of it, with only a touch of silkiness. Instead, the tree looks like it was just dumped in mud. But how do I do it? All I have is a "maybe". Maybe take a separate shot with shorter exposure time and just use flash, then merge them? But I imagine this will turn the rest of the water black then it'll be tough to merge.

Canon EOS 60D with Canon 18-55mm
FL = 18mm
Aperture = f/13
Exposure = 30 seconds
ISO = 100
Exposure Bias = 0
No Flash.

Thank you very much for taking your time on this.

[navcom]

There are very few times where a shot SOOC doesn't need a bit of post processing. Digital cameras usually under-saturate and under-sharpen a bit. Sometimes you can control it by modifying camera defaults but it's usually best left to post as every shot will be different. Quite honestly, most pro film shots were modified in post...it just happened to be a darkroom versus Photoshop.

Some folks are "purists", which is great. It's always a good practice to get the shot as good as possible straight out of the camera because any post processing can introduce some level of degradation. That being said, you will not find very many pro photogs that don't post process.

As for your shot, the reason your shot looks so bright is because of the long exposure. You can take a shot at midnight of a night sky and if you have a long exposure, it will look like day. That's because even at night there is lots of light (stars, moon, streetlights, ect.).

Concerning the smoothness of the water....if you want sharper detail in the water, you will need a shorter shutter speed...and that might not be possible in very low light situations. Some camera's have very good high-speed ISO quality but most don't. That is about your only option. Otherwise you can do as you say...layering in photoshop with one taken during the day or when it's light enough out to stop the water.

I think you have an interesting shot. I personally like the water and the foreground. The contrast between the brown and blue water is a neat effect. If you want to control the brightness of the sky, you could try a graduated ND filter or also use bracketing/layering for that as well.

I do wish it was in landscape orientation. The composition does not flow right in portrait. It has mostly horizontal lines and they are fighting the vertical orientation.

[Krusty79]

The dark foreground is cool, but it does seem a little odd next to the blue water and sky. I think you might have to go the exposure blending/HDR route because you have the bright lights and dark foreground. It's the old dynamic range issue.

[Doug Sundseth]

Your other choice (than HDR/tonemapping) would be to bring light into the scene, either by using a flash or by using light painting. With a flash, you could freeze the water near you while leaving the background unaffected. (Remember that shutter speed only affects ambient light, so you can dial the background up or down independently from the brightness of the lit foreground.

[Phoenix_Jackson]

Thank you very much for all the input. I'll be visiting this spot for a second shot soon. I just have to check how many scenes in this session do I need to re-shoot. Please know that all the comments are duly noted.

[wulf]

Is this one straight out of the camera? It looks very vivid. I wonder if you have a setting on your camera which is enhancing the saturation and this loses some detail which affects your ability to post-process the image further? I agree with navcom that most images do benefit from some post processing (although I am inclined to make a slight modification and say "subtle post processing").

I'm not sure if your idea of merging long and short-with-flash exposures would work. Try it and see what you get. You could also try a series of images of the same scene with increasingly long exposures - that would give you material to base future judgements on.

Do try cropping to some different formats as well - again, I agree with navcom's suggestion that landscape might work better here. It would also do away with most of the brown area at the bottom, dealing with one of your other issues, too.

Wulf

[Phoenix_Jackson]

I believe this was SOOC. I have a habit of auto curving and brightness-contrast tweaking before converting to JPEGs but I believe this was untouched, as the first time I stared at it, I already know that this is the picture meant for my topic here on DPS about PP/no PP. But trying to get better SOOCs did encourage me to create a setting of my own nothing but a slight increase in contrast and saturation. So I guess that's another part that I neglected to address. Sorry.

I apologize for the orientation. It's just that trying portrait orientation on a landscape was mentioned a couple of times. And although I'm really not familiar with it, I tried it on this photo thinking it elongates the tree a bit. I guess it takes a bit further learning before going against landscape orientation for a landscape image.

I'm all for just a slight enhancement through PP. But there just are times when SOOC results to something far different from what I initially saw (just like this one), that really tempts me to do a little heavy work... but still end up with more people in favor of the original. Hence this post.

Thank you more for the extra time and input you have provided.

Here's a quick edit. A version close to what I envisioned the shot would have been.