Here is a Sunrise shot taken last Saturday morning around 6:30am. Richard and his soft-core photogs may have gotten the sunset, the blue collar guys were up on Round Bald with the early birds.
I would love your feedback on this shot.
Harold
EOS 40D
ISO -100
1/4 sec
F32
28-135mm lens
polarizer
Posted by Lance Warley on June 17, 2008 at 9:24 AM
I love it as is, Harold.
I wonder, however, if it would be even more dramatic if you could lighten the distance so that there's more detail on a couple of distant ridges. And maybe more shades of red-orange in the sky. Sort of the dawn rolling in. Might be possible in 16-bit mode.
It's a very nice composition with the sun placement, layered ridges and silhouetted trees along the bottom to add context. I like it a lot. I do have a couple of questions and then some comments on improving it.
First, why f32 and why the polarizer? Unless you were going for the diffraction star, the image quality really suffers at this setting. And I doubt highly that the polarizer made any difference here.
What I would do is lighten the sky up a bit. The tonal difference between the sun and the sky is too abrupt and looks unnatural. A lighter sky would make that transition less obvious and a bit more pleasing, IMO.
(Oh, and by the way. My "soft-core photographers" and I met in Asheville at 4:30 am to catch the sunrise elsewhere)
Nice meeting you this weekend, Harold!
Posted by Thomas Biggs on June 17, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Nice one Harold!!
Here's mine from a few minutes earlier.
Very nice shots Harold and Tom. I should have stayed up on Round Bald a little longer after meeting you guys. I went back down too fast, after all, I suffered just getting up there. You guys got some really nice shots. Good job.
Here is another version of the same shot from above. Tell me what you think about the sky and ridges. I tried some different settings in photoshop but nothing I tried would bring out the ridge line definitions without distorting the sun.
Harold
Posted by Lance Warley on June 18, 2008 at 7:03 AM
Discussion
10 repliesI would love your feedback on this shot.
Harold
EOS 40D
ISO -100
1/4 sec
F32
28-135mm lens
polarizer
I wonder, however, if it would be even more dramatic if you could lighten the distance so that there's more detail on a couple of distant ridges. And maybe more shades of red-orange in the sky. Sort of the dawn rolling in. Might be possible in 16-bit mode.
It's a very nice composition with the sun placement, layered ridges and silhouetted trees along the bottom to add context. I like it a lot. I do have a couple of questions and then some comments on improving it.
First, why f32 and why the polarizer? Unless you were going for the diffraction star, the image quality really suffers at this setting. And I doubt highly that the polarizer made any difference here.
What I would do is lighten the sky up a bit. The tonal difference between the sun and the sky is too abrupt and looks unnatural. A lighter sky would make that transition less obvious and a bit more pleasing, IMO.
(Oh, and by the way. My "soft-core photographers" and I met in Asheville at 4:30 am to catch the sunrise elsewhere)
Nice meeting you this weekend, Harold!
Here's mine from a few minutes earlier.
Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I will go back and try some of these and repost the image in the next few days.
Thanks again guys,
Harold
Harold
H
Tom your photos is great too.