Sunset Road

[JK6065]

Tonight was actually a very nice sunset. At first I went to a little bridge on which a did a HDR with the sun still above the horizon. Back than the sky looked OK but no more than that, so I went home. But on my way back the sky was painted with a lot of colours and stripes. The problem was that I was surrounded by plain fields. So no that much for an interesting composition (the roads were al pointing the wrong way). I found this post at the side of the road I tried to do some with it. It looks OK to me though I regret I couldn't get everything out of it.

Well, here are the results.



3 shots HDR with 1.7 eV difference: 1/100 1/320 1/1000s f/16.0 ISO-100 @ 18mm

What do you think of this HDR effect, does it suit the scene? I tried to make a very naturally looking HDR out of it.

And the second one


1/250s f/16.0 ISO 200 @58 mm

C&C very welcome

[Shadowman]

Jereon,

I like the composition of the first image. What is that at the end of the bridge? Did you do any post processing, you could probably decrease some of the flare from the sun. The second image looks fine, nice lines, angles, and colors.

[carregwen]

Jeroen,

Both very nice images. The HDR effect is very natural looking. I thought that #2 needed 0,5+ exposure, as so...

[arith]

No flare is good. How come the sun always burns a hole around it. It would be more natural if it didn't. Maybe there is a way to make it look natural. I like it but think I would need to fix the burning hole in the fence.

[JK6065]

Thank you for your reply Shadowman, The thing at the end is a concrete post to make sure only bicycles enter the bridge. As processing id did the HDR in Photomatix. In here a adjusted the strength of the HDR effect and the light smoothing to get this natural result. The I opened it in CS2 and cloned some lens flare spots out of it. Than I did a noise reduction with neat image and than a sharpened. After resizing a sharpened again.

I think you're absolutely right Rob, It looks much better. Thanks for pointing it out.

Steve, Somehow the sun is a strange thing to photograph and it is always difficult to shoot with the sun in your frame. Though I think in this shot is a good part of the composition and I think the shot was less powerful if I shot this after sunset. Though I'll have a try in fixing the fence.

edit: I had a quick try on fixing the fence, but I can't get it right. Form my results so far I think you take too much away from the sun if you do it. I leave it this way I think. You don't mind a hope.