Yellow Acacia, Ngorongoro

[kab]

Hi,

I'm new to photography (and all the tools), and I'm looking for constructive criticism.  Any/every part of the process is fair game: image capture, developing, conversion to web viewing (image seems to have lost highlights on the ground and become more saturated in the branches), forum posting decorum.

Shot late afternoon in Ngorongoro crater, Tanzania.  Hurrying to leave for the day, asked the driver to stop, and had everybody else in the car wondering what animal they were supposed to be looking at.

[attachment=15876:Yellow_A...orongoro.jpg]
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Canon 40D, 100-400L @ 100mm, ISO400, f/5, 1/400s.
RAW, processed with ADR 5.4; pushed a full stop (yes, if I could have left the vehicle and set up a stable tripod, I would have modified the exposure - this was the best of 4 shots).

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thank you,
Kent

[shutterpup]

Forgive me; is this sky in the background or is it trees? It looks unnatural to my eye. If it's trees, I would have included a bit of sky to give you an idea of a wooded area directly behind the tree.

[Chairman Bill]

The hillside provides a good contrast to the tree, which clearly demonstrates why it's called the Yellow Acacia. If you'd had the option of a narrower depth of field it would have been good to leave the hill really out of focus.

[cmi]

This is a awesome sight, an unusual looking tree in front of this gigantic mountain, and the blue atmosphere. Well spotted. The framing however dont satisfy me, its looks as if taken in a hurry. (Not meant as insult, I have my images too, which have a nice subject, but where I went too fast.) For me this would be tempting to reshoot, I guess I would try to give the tree a bit more space, let it stand alone with some empty room around it - if the scene permits of course. But that said, its a pleasure to look at this color combination.

Just my 0.02€


Christian

[kab]

Thanks for the comments.  Ultimately, the image stands or falls on its own, but there are some severe limitations to shooting in Ngorongoro: you can't get out of the rover to walk around, the rover cannot leave the road, you cannot enter the crater before sunrise and you must be completely out before sunset, and it's a considerable drive in, etc.  Definitely worth going, incredibly beautiful, and also had many moments of "gee, I wish I could be higher/lower/closer/farther..."  Yeah, I know: "Poor me!"

The background is a bit disorienting.  The backdrop is ~400m/1500' of steep, treed crater wall -- kinda hard to get any sky.  It's just starting to rain, which added color to the crater side, and I liked that.

There were far less interesting trees left and right, but otherwise, yes, I would have liked it in isolation, too.  The image has been cropped by a tiny bit (dozens of pixels) on the top and left to frame it as best I could.   And no offense taken -- it is a 'hurried' shot in the sense that I saw it from one position and did not (could not) move to a better position, and so yes, it could have been better if I had moved -- that's just exactly the kind of reply I'm looking for.

I was surprised that f/5 gave me so much depth of field -- like I said, I'm new at this, and thought from the preview I thought that the hill was defocused.  Maybe something to try in PS?

thanks all for helping me improve,
-- kab

[cmi]

...

thanks all for helping me improve,
-- kab

You are welcome.

To get to know your dof try dofmaster.com, I especially recommend the window app. I used it to gain knowlegde of DOF related to focal lenght. Was very insightful for me. Also I wouldnt try to improve the DOF in PS, except if I where to rescue an otherwise perfect shoot.  Better get it right in the field. (//edit: Beside this, I find in this case the BG doesn't need to be tack sharp, but that depends also on taste. But of course in the general case, certainly its better to HAVE it sharp in the first place.)

Re the background, I dont think its disorienting, I think its perfect. You have the single tree in the FG and smaller vegetation at the distant, and that conveys depth and size.



Christian

[John R]

It looks good to me. Would it look better if the DOF was shallower? Possibly, but that is second guessing. The only thing I could add is, if you were going for a certain look of shallow DOF, then why not take more shots and try different DOF next time; its only pixels and not film.

JMR