Forest Lake by Starlight

Gallery: LandscapePosted May 18, 2012114 views3 comments

Nikon D5100 w/ Tamron 28-300VC lens
ISO 3200, F4, 20 sec. exposure
RAW file processed in PSE10; 75% of original image
Location: Woods Canyon Lake, AZ

I shot this last weekend while on a recent camping trip. While it doesn't measure up to the professional work in this gallery, I thought I would see what you all think. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by Mark Seaver on May 18, 2012 at 11:56 AM

You've got a beautiful starry sky and it's nice to see the lake in the foreground. It would be nice to have the lake a bit lighter and the leaning trees on the left feel like there's some wide angle distortion. I don't know about PSE, but in photoshop that distortion can be fixed using perspective control during cropping.

Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments

Comment posted by John Mumaw on May 18, 2012 at 6:38 PM

Nice starscape. Consider loading the RAW file in your converter and then using Tungsten white balance (+/- to taste) for a bluer sky. If you can get some more detail out of the lake, I think that would make this much more successful. Even matching the luminosity of the left (lighter) side with the darker right side would work for me.

Registered on September 9, 2005, 62 Posts, 2289 Comments

Comment posted by Tonia Graves on May 19, 2012 at 7:10 PM

Mark & John, thanks for the suggestions. I tried playing around with it a bit but couldn't get changes made without loss of image quality (esp. when trying to lighten the water). My post-processing skills are not all that great yet.

Registered on October 29, 2011, 92 Posts, 1035 Comments