Rannoch Moor

Hello,

Spent the New Year in the Scottish Highlands and whilst it was extremely cold on occasions (minus 10 at 11am !! on one day) the light was fantastic. This time of year the sun starts to dip behind the scenery from around 2.30pm onwards. This is a shot of Rannoch Moor just off the A82, the mountain to the left is the Black Mountain (I believe). The loch was totally frozen, from edge to centre and this was taken at around 2.45pm.

Techs,

D3, 24-70 2.8 at 24mm
ISO 560, handheld at 1/60 second at f16

thanks for looking

cheers

Colin

Great ingredients for the shot, foreground interest in the rocks in the loch, clear winter lighting and the gorgeous cloud hugging the mountain tops, but somehow the ingredients don't quite gel for me

The problem is I think too much sky, the image is currently roughly balanced 50:50 and the hills in deep shadow on the left don't add a great deal, a case of more is less? - perhaps a tighter portrait format crop on the loch/rock/twin cloud covered mountains would be more dramatic than the landscape format

Mike

Nice, like the clouds and colours, makes me jealous about my southern drizzly Hogmanay,but agree with Mikes comments needs something else, shame the rock was not closer to shore for more foreground, looks tight for 24mm, has it been cropped?

john

Mike, I agree totally, I did ponder cropping the sky, but decided against it, (it looks nice on a 30" screen )

John, no cropping at all, full frame

thanks for the comments

personally i reckon i would have got a little closer to the rock if possible and cut out half of the sky, looks like you had a great time up there with the light though.

Great light and setting - think Mike's comments on comp are right though.

Mark

This is the crop I had in mind, or a more vertical portrait/pano crop, although everything is a bit too central now from the available image - really needs the ice-rim line on the right to act as a leading line and is partially cut off at present

Hi, a pleasing shot of Rannoch Moor. Nice light and tones. Agree with the sky comments above and the horizon doesn't look quite straight - it seems to be sloping off left to right. The line of ice if postioned differently (I dont know if this was possible in the conditions) would have made a beautiful leading line into the mountains without the rocks (I feel the rocks are too strongly present in the foreground and I want to be looking at the mountains with the snow and clouds). Other than that its nice to see a different perspective without the 'infamous tree'.

Ian

Hi Colin, for me this image has all the right elements for a great image, however, although I'm no expert, I suspect that it was vertually impossible to get into a position to use the edge of the ice and forground rocks as lead in's, while also capturing the dramatic peaks at the back Possibly a move to the left and shoot from their but you would possibly have lost the dramatic peaks in the bakground.

A shot I would have been proud of never the less!

Scott

Agree with the comments so far but looks it was hard to compose just right and not sure I'd want to hang around fiddling too long in those temps! Having said that the light and cloud on the tops is very nice