Morning Warmth

[HiImTom]

Just curious how others feel about the light in background? Do you feel this add to the image, giving the eyes somewhere to end or is it just a distraction?

[Cantab]

Tom, I used a sheet of paper (on an iPad screen) to crop the horizontal light area in the background. Although I'm not sure why, I think the picture is better with the light area. But I'll be interested to see what others think.

[Mike Buckley]

The bright background works fine for me. If you could lift the foreground shadows to provide more detail and clarity, your photo might become magical.

[Geoff F]

For me, Tom, misty scenes usually work better with a sharper 'reference area' in the foreground. Which you have with this scene.

But I suspect there is just a fraction too much dark area at the bottom. This probably won't lighten sufficiently so I would crop slightly closer at the bottom.

This is of more concern to me than the top brightness, which works either way. The only problem with a slight crop is do you take a matching amount from the sides (left side?) or can you get away with a different size ratio (maybe 5 x 4 ratio)?

[HiImTom]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Geoff, you are exactly right! Lightening it in the foreground gives a horrid color. I chose to darken the foreground to try and recover though a vignette.

Is this a situation where a flash would help overcome this issue? I don't have much experience with the flash. Right now I have two options, on and off. On, well, it produces results that make you want to turn it off, lol. Has anyone tried softening a point and shoot to produce a workable result?

[Mike Buckley]

Rather than use a flash, you could have used a tripod and taken one exposure that is ideal for the bright areas and a different exposure that is ideal for the dark areas. You could have then combined the best parts of the two files into one file.

[Geoff F]

Flash can be used to lighten a foreground but it is often difficult to get natural looking results. Using any of the full auto settings is likely to be disappointing. Try shooting in Av (aperture priority) but use a tripod because the exposure may be rather long.

Or, what I would use, is to set the camera manually to suit the background then adjust the flash output compensation to achieve a suitable result.

But this still might not give what you want.

Mike's idea of shooting some form of HDR exposures then combining them could work. HDR can be made to look natural with careful editing; or manually combine two or more shots.

The potential problem with this sort of shot is wind movement of the reeds, or other parts, which would make a HDR combination difficult, or impossible. Worth trying though.

Your other option is to make a dark foreground into an important element of your composition. As you have already achieved with this image which has the foreground in silhouette form.

[Mike Buckley]

I wasn't thinking of using HDR software due to the issue Geoff mentioned about wind moving the foreground plants. Instead, I was thinking of manually combining two different exposures.

[Kaye Leggett]

I like the light but agree maybe the foreground is too dark. I looked at it by cropping out the very bottom which seemed to work better as the bright green grasses then led my eyes into the light.

[HiImTom]

Thanks all for the input and information. I have yet to attempt to combine photos together and will start reading up on it. I am curious to see if similar situations will be impacted by wind and such. I cropped it and really like the outcome, thank you. Another one for the Penski file I suppose.

[Bob44]

A nice photo. The thought I had would be to shoot a little lower (but, only if that is safe and possible) and put those water plants above the skyline. As I said it is a nice photo of the mist and morning.

[HiImTom]

I go to work most mornings all muddy from such things Man, I'm one lucky guy. I never saw this before, it was there and gone. Wish I was able to get more than one shot! Maybe tomorrow?