Surfers Paradise

[dje]

Hi folks

I haven't posted any images for some time, mainly because I haven't done much other than family stuff. These were taken on a recent short stay at the Gold Coast.

Sun sets over Surfers Paradise


Looking towards Surfers from Snapper Rocks


Lonely Paddleboarder


A Quiet Day at "Dbar"


Comments Welcome
Dave

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Dave,

A nice series capturing the feel of the place - says someone who has never been there!

If I may, I'd make a few compositional suggestions of how I would vary these slightly;

#1 I'd crop a slither off the top edge, just so there's not so much brightness touching the edge of frame
#2 I'd level the horizon
#3 I'd try to add a bit more space behind the surfer 'stalking' the paddle-boarder
#4 I'd add a slither at the top of frame (so the person top right has more room)

In #3 the triangle formed by the paddle-boarder, surfer and buoy works well.

In the shots I suggest 'add', I really mean that, with content aware fill, to avoid bringing in anything else you had cropped out to avoid distractions (or crop less and clone out the distraction).

Hope those thoughts are helpful,
Another Dave

[Shadowman]

Nice series, I really like the paddle boarder.

[dje]

Many thanks for your comments Dave and John.

Dave I will try the crop changes you suggest. I think they would be worthwhile. Images 3 and 4 are cropped quite a bit and there should be no problem adding a bit more in here and there, without added distractions. It's funny but I hadn't even noticed that the horizon was a bit out in 2 (but it is!)

Dave

[Geoff F]

Dave has already mentioned most of my first thoughts. However, a few additional ideas.

#3 has a couple of obvious sensor dust spots on the sky. Also, I wonder about a different approach to this scene. The foreground is out of focus and the main subject is closer to the right side than the left; so I would consider cropping a little from the bottom and left side to lose the left corner figure and concentrate solely on the lonely paddle border? Possibly a bit of clone work as well to remove the corner figure.

A pity about the surf in #4 being over exposed. Is it possible to recover some detail from the original shot?

[dje]

Thanks for your comments Geoff.

Yes I'll have to fix those dust spots! I'll also have a look at your alternative crop suggestion although I'm not sure about losing the corner girl.

I've had a look at the raw file for #4 and it is not over-exposed. So the over-exposure you mention must have occurred during post processing. I need to investigate this further but yes I think I can pull out some more detail in the surf.

Dave

Edit : New version of image without blown highlights.

[Geoff F]

That is much better, Dave; exactly how surf should look.

[dje]

That is much better, Dave; exactly how surf should look.

Yes Geoff I re-processed the image from scratch. It just shows how you need to be careful with pp. I'm not sure what caused the blowout but I think I may have overdone the haze removal filter.

Thanks for picking this up, it made a big difference.