Beach with snow

[coachgrl22]

I walked down to the beach during the beginning of a snow storm and got this picture. I used my new fish eye lens to take it. I am really curious about the composition of the photo. Should I have taken it from a different angle? I really like the photo but feel like something might be missing.

From 365 day project

Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS REBEL T2i
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/800 sec
Aperture: n/a
Focal Length: n/a
Flash Used: No

The lens is all manual and I do not remember what I set the aperture to. I really need to be more observant of that when I use this lens!

[crockny]

I like the idea very much -- I'm thinking maybe if you stood to the left more behind the large rock and used it as foreground leading into the other rocks it might have been better, maybe get down low -- it feels tight and concentrated into one small area ... definitely pay attention to the fstop! You should be able to find the info in Flickr or in Bridge if you use it ... the focus looks soft but hard for me to tell at small sizes ... you will want to experiment with hyperfocal distance for stuff like this ...

[Ridgetop]

I like what you were going for here. I would have thought it was some sort of sand dunes rather than snow given the coloration, but I still like it. I'm not sure about being closer to the rock, given the neat shadows in the snow in front of it. I'm a little bothered by the horizon perfectly splitting the scene though. Although this can work sometimes, normally it's a no no as it creates an image of two separate "pictures" almost. I think if you cropped about 25% of the sky out of the shot, you'd have a nice "black and white" looking wall photo. Nice job.

[Doug Sundseth]

I like the tones you captured quite a bit, and much of the composition is very good as well. But that sky isn't doing enough for you to justify the amount of weight it has in the photo, and the same can probably be said for the sand on the near side of the near rock.

If you were to shoot from closer to the foreground rock and shoot in landscape rather than portrait, I think you'd have a better picture.

[NotQuite]

I feel like there is not enough of the water. If you didn't tell me it was a beach I honestly would not have known. I wonder if having the camera above your head angled towards the rocks would have got more water and less sky

[milosh]

I also like the photo and agree with everything already said, especially about the amount of the sky, getting a bit closer to the rock and shooting in landscape orientation. One more thing I noticed is that your photo is very soft (unsharp).

I'm not sure about the performance of the fish-eye lens you used, but it may be due to large aperture you used (and the shutter speed also suggests that you used a large aperture). Lenses are generally not very sharp when wide open, it's best to stop down the aperture one or two stops. Also, your horizon is leaning to the left a bit. But overall, it's a great try!

[ironmike]

I agree with what the others have said above about the heavy weighting of the sky, as well as the horizon splitting the frame too perfectly. My eye and interest is drawn more to the rock pile with the snow cascading in the crevices and the contrast to the beach/ocean. It would probably be hard to capture that with the fisheye, but I would try filling the frame a good bit with those rocks w/ a background of the beach and crashing waves (and at a slower shutter -- 1/4 sec if you had a tripod handy).

[EOBeav]

The upper half of your image has absolutely nothing in it.

[Barry Jackson]

A black and white version might be nice with about a third less sky.

[coachgrl22]

Thank you for the advice! I do have a landscape version of this picture. I will post it when I get home from work. I am also going to try and crop out some of the sky!