Sunset at the Florida Keys

[Alis]

This is my first sunset picture. I learned a lot about shooting sunset just by doing it that day! It was a crowded place, so I had to do it handheld.

It was take with a Canon 5D MKII (I am sort of bragging here!) I cropped out a few of the birds and adjusted the picture in LR, sharpened a bit. I tried the cropped version that was suggested here earlier, I actually liked it a lot!

Anyway, comment are welocome. shred it!

Thanks,

Ali

Original:



Panoramic:

[Colin Southern]

Hi Sedali,

Congratulations on the fine new camera (almost as nice as my 1Ds3) (I like bragging too )

Seriously (for a moment), a few suggestions to make it look a bit better ...

1. As a rule, orient the camera so that your longest edge is parallel to the longest lines in the image - in this case the longest line is the horizon which is of course horizontal - so this shot would have been better shot horizontally rather than vertically.

2. If you can, make features like the boat 15% to 20% the width of whatever axis they lie on - in this case I would have zoomed in a LOT more so that the boat becomes a more significant feature (assuming that you have the lenes to do it).

3. As a rule, the only kinds of shots that work well centred are mirror/reflection shots - in other shots (this one included) you'll get a better result following the rule of thirds (putting the centre of interest 1/3 from the top or bottom, and 1/3 in from the left or right. In the case of a boat the traditional thing is to leave more space in front of it.

4. As a rule (love these rules eh!) Put your horizon 1/3 down from the top - unless it's a particularly interesting sky, in which case go for 1/3 up from the bottom).

Hope you don't mind, but I've taken the liberty of giving your image a little "nip & tuck" to show you what I mean ...



Here's an example of one of mine where you can break the rule of thirds and center things - but I hope you agree that this wouldn't have worked anywhere nearly as well without the large boat in the foreground intersecting the diagonal view ...



Here's another example of what I mean by the rule of thirds - in this case the foreground is more interesting so the horizon is 1/3 down from the top, and the boat in the foreground was at least 20% of the horigontal width (to guarantee it is a significant size in the final image - your boat looks a "little bit lost" in the image).



Hope this helps

Cheers,

Colin - pbase.com/cjsouthern

PS: Hope you don't feel in anyway "deflated" following my critique - it's a great shot and you're off to a great start ... keep at it!

[Alis]

PS: Hope you don't feel in anyway "deflated" following my critique - it's a great shot and you're off to a great start ... keep at it!

Not at all, Colin. I like your version better actually. And I think your comments are right on target. Thanks for taking the time. I love those sunset shots too.

Thanks again,

Sedali

[Colin Southern]

You're very welcome!