The Pinnacles - Part Two

[Josh-H]

This is sort of a follow up to my other image HERE - But this one is actually of the Pinnacles themselves. Where as the other is actually looking away from them.

Technically it was quite challenging because the sun was setting behind the rock formations. I have a short write up on my blog about it. I personally prefer the image looking away - but this one tugs at my heart strings simply because it actually includes the Pinnacles.

Thoughts and comments welcome as always.
[attachment=21643:_74X2989_Edit2010.jpg]

[Dick Roadnight]

This one is actually of the Pinnacles themselves. Where as the other is actually looking away from them.

Technically it was quite challenging because the sun was setting behind the rock formations. I have a short write up on my blog about it. I personally prefer the image looking away - but this one tugs at my heart strings simply because it actually includes the Pinnacles.

Thoughts and comments welcome as always.

This is the sort of shot where kit and tech make a difference...

On a scene 1/100th the size, without the surf, you could have used flash fill...

Did you consider HDR? All the surf/sea is within latitude, so you could mask it out of all but one picture, or could do if HDR allowed you to mask individual exposures... what about Photomatrix?

I thought about a graduated pink or haze filter for blue skys, but the polarizer usually does the job. ¿Even if polarizers darken red skys, they work best at 90 degrees to the sun and would not have helped here?

T/S would have allowed you to us a faster shutter speed for the surf. The foreground rocks look in focus... was this just due to WA DOF?

[Josh-H]

This is the sort of shot where kit and tech make a difference...

On a scene 1/100th the size, without the surf, you could have used flash fill...

Did you consider HDR? All the surf/sea is within latitude, so you could mask it out of all but one picture, or could do if HDR allowed you to mask individual exposures... what about Photomatrix?

I thought about a graduated pink or haze filter for blue skys, but the polarizer usually does the job. ¿Even if polarizers darken red skys, they work best at 90 degrees to the sun and would not have helped here?

T/S would have allowed you to us a faster shutter speed for the surf. The foreground rocks look in focus... was this just due to WA DOF?

Thanks.

No - HDR isnt my cup of tea. Rarely do I see a HDR image that I like and never do them myself. I prefer to try and get it right in the field with one expsoure - thats just a personal preference.

I could have used a polariser here (in fact, I have a frame where I tried it), but I feel it did not add to the image. The problem with a polariser is that it darkens selectively based on the angle of light and it crushed down much of the detail in the Pinnacles themselves to black.

A fast shutter speed was not what I was after - I did not want to freeze the surf. I far prefer the milky blur of the ocean.

Yes, WA DOF has focus pretty much from a few feet out from the tripod to infinity.

Thanks for the thoughts and comments.

[Dick Roadnight]

Thanks.

No - HDR isnt my cup of tea. Rarely do I see a HDR image that I like and never do them myself. I prefer to try and get it right in the field with one expsoure - thats just a personal preference.

Yes, I used HDR once and gave it up in preference to manual layering, when required, but I think that PhotoMatrix makes it useful.

I had a play with the file in Photoshop, and found that I could improve the saturation of the sky or fill the shadows of the rocks, but not both at the same time, so making a copy layer and adjusting one for the sky and one for the rock, and re-combining might produce improvements... and doing the processing on the raw full-res file would be better, of course.

[button]

Hey Josh, leave it as is- it's a winner to me.  The light behind the rocks makes the shot, as its horizontal line plays well with the diagonal of the waves and that formed by the positioning of the rocks.

John

[Jack Varney]

No HDR here for me, it would ruin the mood.