Lord Akersten's Retreat

[Colin Southern]

Canon 1Ds3 - EF 16-35mm F2.8L USM @ 16mm - Singh-Ray 3_Stop GND FIlter. 5 Second Exposure @ F22 @ ISO 100.

[Blazing fire]

The image looks artificial because the foreground is so much brighter than the sky. Is this deliberate? But otherwise, a nice image and technically perfect.

[Colin Southern]

The image looks artificial because the foreground is so much brighter than the sky. Is this deliberate? But otherwise, a nice image and technically perfect.

Thanks for the feedback - to be honest, the levels of the foregroud were bugging me a bit too, so I've knocked them back a bit now. They were caused by having a 3-Stop GND filter on the camera, which was a little mich, but it's all I had on me.

[KentDub]

Great picture Colin. I always love how vibrant you get the colors in the reflections. I'm not much of a fan of leaving the pincushin in, there is slight aliasing on the left and right edges, quite a distraction to me. Did you use a flash to illuminate the foreground? Very interesting with it being lit and the hills dark

[Colin Southern]

Great picture Colin. I always love how vibrant you get the colors in the reflections. I'm not much of a fan of leaving the pincushin in, there is slight aliasing on the left and right edges, quite a distraction to me. Did you use a flash to illuminate the foreground? Very interesting with it being lit and the hills dark

Hi Kent,

Thanks for the kind words. The pincusion was a bit of an experiment - I'll do a version without it to see how it looks. Truth be known it was about 1:30am when I finished and the idea of sleep was more apealing than more PP work at that stage!

I used a 3-Stop hard-edge filter to knock back the sky and water, which left the foreground a wee bit bright, but I've also knocked that back with a bit more PP. In reality I probably didn't need the filter for this shot as I was shooting into the sun; I might try it again with my 14mm lens tonight and see how it goes.

[Blazing fire]

Is there anyway to reduce the local contrast of the foreground? It still looks "off"

[Ashwin]

Is there anyway to reduce the local contrast of the foreground? It still looks "off"

Colin,

Can I try to improve your this IMAGE

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

Can I try to improve your this IMAGE

Sure - I've just finished re-working it myself, with the final version / name being ...

[Ashwin]

Sure - I've just finished re-working it myself, with the final version / name being ...

This is what I could do for you.... your comments please

[Blazing fire]

Now it looks worse. I guess I don't give good recommendations!

Upon re-looking, it does look more natural, but still "off".

[Colin Southern]

This is what I could do for you.... your comments please

Hi Ashwin,

Thanks for doing that, but to be honest, I really can't see any difference (apart from an "oops" in the right-hand border) (I've got got up, so perhaps my eyes are still a bit too blurry!).

[Colin Southern]

Now it looks worse. I guess I don't give good recommendations!

Upon re-looking, it does look more natural, but still "off".

The more I looked at my "darkened foreground" version, the more I didn't like it - so I started again from scratch on my primary PP PC. The "revised edition is actually 32 stacked frames - carefully adjusted in the RAW converter. I didn't touch the foreground in the end.

I found that it's one of those images that looks better the bigger you see it - so I've uploaded a fairly high resolution version in case anyone wants to take a look at the "bigger picture" (I've currently got it set as my wallpaper and I'm pretty happy with how it looks).

[Blazing fire]

The picture in the first post is quite bad. The one in post #8 is decent.

[Colin Southern]

The picture in the first post is quite bad. The one in post #8 is decent.

Hmmm - just wondering if you've re-profiled your monitor recently?

[Dave Humphries]

I prefer #8, mainly due to the tighter crop to be rid of the nasty pin-cushioning, which also removes a chunk of disturbing cloud on the left.

[Colin Southern]

I prefer #8, mainly due to the tighter crop to be rid of the nasty pin-cushioning, which also removes a chunk of disturbing cloud on the left.

Thanks Dave. The first was just a "proof of concept", at 1:20am - it was taken from a single frame and I left the pincushioning in for "something different". To be honest, I quite like the pincushioning effect, but it probably needs a thinner gray stroke around it though.

The "real" image is 32 stacked frames (take a close look at the noise levels and see if you like ), with better "light of day" RAW adjustments.

[Dave Humphries]

(take a close look at the noise levels and see if you like )

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's so quiet I can hear myself breathing

[Ashwin]

Upon re-looking, it does look more natural, but still "off".

This is what I have done....... natural look to the picture.,