Apostle moonset & first light

I am currently taking a break on the Great Ocean Road, Australia. I think this year my main

project will be to capture the coast of the state of Victoria, afterall it is my home state. What

better way than to kick off with the big one, the 12 apostles, near Port Campbell. It was a

daunting prospect to come up with a new spin on icons like the 12 apostles & Loch Ard

gorge. But I lucked out with some great light over the 3 days. Here are the apostles lit by the

moon about to set in a night sky. The end of the long exposure also caught the indirect glow

of first light, hence the front lighting. Specs : Canon 5D, 16-35mm 2.8L, ISO200, f16, shutter

78 seconds, 3 stop hard ND grad.

Perfect composition and mood!

This is a most beautiful scene , Excellent light , colors and composition

Beautiful view - great sunset, and composition with this rocks. Great.

very nice :) I am wondering whethear if you choose to capture the waves of the sea won't be good also?

The emerging dawn light on the stacks is lovely and works very well with the moonset that punctuates the coast line very nicely. The rather dark top and bottom of the image seem somewhat less congruent with the gentler tones in the middle. Is this the view from the eastern end of the main platform? (I've not been here since the most photogenic stack closest to the platform collapsed about two years ago)

Very pleasing image as usual!

On my screen the darker areas have lost a bit of detail, though.

 

Thanks you for your comments. This was an interesting situation with the light constantly changing during the exposure. When I arrived the scene was more of a night sky I and wanted to preserve this feeling. For this reason I used a reverse ND 3 stop to preserve the dark sky & control the moon's brightness. I actually saw the result of not using a grad on a fellow photographer's LCD screen and didn't like that exposing for the foreground resulted in a sky that could have been daylight. I have not lightened the foreground to give the feeling of night-time but perhaps I will try a bit of work on the left lower corner. This is the view from midway down the Eastern section. you can see the collapsed apostle as a pile of rubble behind the front apostle to the left.

A good job,always dificult to take a image with the quality of this,under this lighting circustances

Excellent work and perfect colours.

Nice landscape and the light over the water. The dark corners are distracting to me too, but discussed in this forum already. I felt that zooming in on the moon, sea rock and the glowing water would be interesting too as in the attached crop, as it helps me focus on the most attractive elements of this scene.

 

+Lalit

Thank you all for your comments. In particular Lalit, I agree with your crop suggestion.

Wonderful shot!!

Wonderful photo! I am split on which is more effective, the suggested crop or the original. Cheers, J

Definitely magic. I like both the cropped and the not cropped versions. The light is special and you've been rewarded for your efforts Kah.

This really is a deeply moving image Kah and one that sends a shiver down the spine. As it is it's wonderful but I also think the cropped version has significant merit.

 

Also perhaps an attempt at lightening the bottom left to balance it with the bottom right could pay dividends.

 

Mike

 

 

Beautiful composition Kah, excellent work, sorry could not rate it 7/7 due to PN restrictions.

 

Regards

beatiful shot, very good work, with a beatiful colors and light, congratulations

Kah Kit

Just lovely, I wish I could travel like you. I was wondering what you thought about raising the foreground light a little. I added three layers, Foreground, the cliff on the right and the beach. All I did was a little touch up with the level control. If this bothers you I'll erase it.

Jim

Spectacular!! Very well done!!

Thanks for your thoughts. James your version has a strange artifact in the top part of the frame. Otherwise you did an excellent job. So it was just a levels adjustment on 3 layers blended? I think I can manage that. MY other thought was just to do some dodge/burn especially on the left lower corner.

Kah Kit

Your right that artifact is my fault. I have to admit that I did this very fast, less than ten minutes in fact. The edge between the foreground and the water is also a bit too hard which can be taken care of with more effort. Compressing this to less than 50k also didn't help. The bottom line is no matter what us back seat drivers say this is a wonderful capture just as you presented it.

Jim

Kah Kit, I think it's exceedingly difficult to capture the sense of night or twilight with a camera, and your original image did it wonderfully! Those corners are SUPPOSED to be dark....lightening them to bring out detail ruins what you have so masterfully captured. Your original imparts the scene and the mood perfectly. My vote: don't crop, and don't lighten; print large and frame.

Thanks Stephen, I don't think I have ever posted a photo that has received so many conflicting suggestions. I think in the end it is a shot with many interpretative possibilities and I will have to sort this out with some prints.

This is really captivating, mysterious light, I would not change anything. Exposition is just perfect, composition very successful. Outstanding landscape