Critique Sunset from the Mountain

[manzico]

I had an opportunity to get out and shoot and we had some great pre-monsoon season skies so the sunset was actually pretty dramatic. I got all of these shots before the actual sunset, but they were by far my favorite for the day.

#1:

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#2:

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#3: (same as above with different framing)

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#4:

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As always, CC are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

 

[jbird]

I find the composition in all of the shots appealing although #4 is the least appealing. The simplicity of #1 is interesting. My eye is drawn to the rock. #3 is better than #2. I think I would have tried to capture #2 without the tree in the frame. On both of those shots, I like the way the rocks fill the frame.

 

[LyndeeLoo]

I love the dramatic skies and my favorite is the third one.

 

[Butlerkid]

Wonderful skies! I applaud you for "working the subject".....really moving around it and trying various compositions. I feel #3 is the strongest composition.

Technically you were faced with a very large contrast range. Highlights are a little overexposed, but shadows are underexposed. I don't know if you shoot raw and process your images...or if you do, what software you use.

In this case, you can try to lower the highlights and lift the shadows. Or try processing the raw two times. Once for the highlights and once for the shadows. Then merge them.

While on location you could take 2 or 3 shots and adjust the exposure by 2 stop + and -. Then merge the images together so that you can have properly exposed brights and retain some detail in the darks/shadows.

 

[Pa]

I agree with Karen. #3 is a nice photo but could be made stronger by lifting the shadows and reducing the highlights a bit. Considering that it was taken with a D800 there should be plenty of dynamic range for doing this if you have a RAW file.

As for taking multiple shots and combining them, I suspect there was enough wind that the grass in #3 would be blurred by combining multiple exposures.

Back when I used a D200 I sometimes used to process three times for highlights, shadows, and midtones and combine as for an HDR. Now with the D610 I don't find that necessary... there's enough DR to just lift shadows and reduce highlights in processing.

 

[manzico]

Wonderful skies! I applaud you for "working the subject".....really moving around it and trying various compositions. I feel #3 is the strongest composition.

Technically you were faced with a very large contrast range. Highlights are a little overexposed, but shadows are underexposed. I don't know if you shoot raw and process your images...or if you do, what software you use.

In this case, you can try to lower the highlights and lift the shadows. Or try processing the raw two times. Once for the highlights and once for the shadows. Then merge them.

While on location you could take 2 or 3 shots and adjust the exposure by 2 stop + and -. Then merge the images together so that you can have properly exposed brights and retain some detail in the darks/shadows.

Thanks, for the comment and the suggestions. I actually did 9 shot brackets for almost all of these, but ended up not using them for several reasons, first was that the wind was blowing and the deghosting algorithms in both LR and PS just couldn't handle the frame to frame differences in the foliage. The second main reason I didn't use them was that, as Pa said, there is plenty of dynamic range in a single D800 shot.

Originally I had much less contrast in the final processed shots, but they just had that over the top HDR kind of look and I found myself dialing it back repeatedly until I got to these versions. I have to say though, that I agree that I might want to take another stab at dialing back the highlights just a touch. Maybe it was in the conversion to sRGB for the web, or maybe I just needed to step back a bit and look at the images again, but I do think I've lost something in the brighter parts of the images... And who knows maybe there's room to boost the shadows back up a bit. It always helps to step away for a bit then come back to an image. And of course all of your thoughtful comments are very helpful as well.

Thanks,

Dave