From Sea to town

[Windyrob]

Hi Folks,

I am very new to this all and would like your help on the following shot. Other than rotating and a small crop there has been no other post editing.

I would like to know what would you differently, how and why? Hope you don't mind the questions just at the point where i am sponge willing to take in any opinions and thoughts.

Thanks in advance for the help.



24mm, F18, 2 second shutter, ISO100.

[Krusty79]

It's a good shot - too bad the sky was such a dreary color. Is it possible to take a shot towards the setting sun with those rocks in the foreground?

Your shutter speed was slow enough to produce a slight blur in the water. I would experiment with different shutter speeds, especially slower ones where the water is more blurred and looks smoother. Your kind of in-between freezing and blurring the water right now.

[NgaiHill]

Nice shot, I like the compositon of the scene.
Agree with Krusty though that the sky is looking a bit washed out. I'd like to see more colour saturation in the background buildings too, they just seem to fade away.
In PP I'd suggest having a play with colour saturation and see what that does.
If you get the chance to take the shot again perhaps try an ND grad filter, if you have one. Or even just a CPL filter.

[vainqueur]

The composition is fine but because the sky color and the water seems almost the same, your water is not getting the attention it should be having.

[sk66]

F/18 wasn't the right choice to get the deep DOF... I think the buildings/city aspect of the shot suffers for it.
Otherwise I think it's basically fine. I'd probably crop off most of the sky and maybe a little off of the left.

[Windyrob]

Thanks for the thoughts folks really appreciated. Although I do have some questions I hop you can help me with.

If F18 is not the best aperture setting what would be and what difference would it make to the shot?
I did try a longer shutter speed but I found the image became over exposed. Is there a clever button or a different setting I have not found that can combat this? (Having only just started out I have not purchased any ND filters yet)

I think I will have a play with post editing and see what changes can be made to the sky and the water.

Once again thanks for the input and I hope you don't mind the questions.

Rob

[sk66]

To get infinite DOF with a wide angle you should use hyper focal settings. for a 24mm lens set at f/10 you would need to focus at about 3m (w/ a crop body) and then everything from 1.5m to infinity would be in focus.

As for needing less light...ND filters are the only way to go when you hit the usable limits (base ISO and f/11 generally). I use a 10 stop variable ND, but they are not cheap.

[Hill Country Hack]

It is a nice shot and I agree with most of the reccomendations/input. Instead of the ND filter, just wait until there is less light to allow for the longer exposure. I don't have much to put into my gear (others would say I'm cheap), so I

I do like how the rocks go from the lower right to the middle of the frame on a diagonal. I too would crop just a bit more sky out since it is not that interesting and a little in from the left.

Counting the three rock outcroppings from front to back, I personally may have tried shooting from the middle outcropping with a lower angle.

[danbaileyphoto]

I actually love this shot. I think you've composed it really well to have an interesting foreground that leads to an interesting background, and a great secondary effect in the water to tie the shot together. I don't see a problem with your depth of field, in fact, using the 2 second shutter speed really accentuated the blurred water, which I think works really well.

It's a little right heavy, but only because the foreground mirrors the background and there's nothing on the left side of the frame but the water. However, in this shot, I think it works, because it tells the story of the coast and the open sea. Wouldn't do this for every shot, you'd usually want something to balance on the other side of the frame.

Great eye and great job creating a really compelling photograph.

[Doug Sundseth]

FWIW, I'm much less worried about diffraction softness than some people. In most situations, it's only visible when you start looking at a pixel level. If you're printing at 20" x 30" (0.5m x 0.75m) and placing the image where it will commonly be viewed close up, this is a problem. For smaller prints or large prints seen from a distance, it doesn't bother me and most people will never see it.

This is obviously different than the opinion held by others ( ), so you'll need to decide what is most important to you.

In photography, most things are tradeoffs. As long as you know what you're trading away and what you're trading for, most choices can be valid.