Huron Ice Puzzle

Did you try to shift the camera a bit to the left to let sun lights through the ice?

Alexander, that's an excellent question and I understand why you asked it.  No, I was unable to shoot through the ice piece at the sun because the rock was in the way.  As it was, the camera was about 3 inches off the ice surface and the rock is a little over a foot away.  The upper piece of ice was perhaps a foot off the water.  This was the best I could do under the circumstances.  I liked this angle because the ice piece pointed towards the sun and also appeared that one time it may have fit into the triangular area below.  Thanks for your comment, Jeff

Beautiful capture.  Thank you for the tip on my image, Heaven & Earth. You're right about the vignetting and the specks. Completely overlooked them, focus was elsewhere.  I appreciate the info. rek.

Very nice comp Jeff. The jagged ice and bright sun light streaming in under the dark clouds work well together to make a very successful image.

Fred

A beautiful and wonderfully constructed image.

When an image is this good, any additional comments are really minor in terms of the current aesthetics.

I am thinking that based on the position of the sun, the color temperature would be warmer.  I would recommend a small yellow/red color balance change.

I would like to see the sun area a bit darker. Possibly you may be able to use a single image HDR process.

Thanks everyone for your comments.  Tony, I am most interested in how you'd adjust the color balance and darken the sun.  Please feel free to rework and repost here.  Regards, Jeff   

Working with a small jpg limits what I can do as opposed to a RAW file. I made some quick changes with Nik Capture NX V1.3  but more can be done.

Thanks Tony.  Your rework gives it a different mood.  Less dramatic perhaps, but worth considering.  Regards, Jeff

Not a problem. There is lots in that sky that can be displayed but without the RAW file (and I don't want it) I could not do much more without getting chromatic aberrations.  For what it is worth on the D300, with D-lighting on and RAW, I have plus or minus about 2 stops.  The only reason I would go to HDR is that I have flexibility for other software options and noise avoidance especially when extracting info in the dark areas of the image. 

For me HDR is a tool so that when I am finished, you cannot tell that HDR is used - at least that is my objective.  I also use ND and GND but when I see it is going to impact things like tree tops, I go the HDR route.  I have seen evidence of that darkening of land mass or tree tops in a few of your images.

You are an excellent photographer and from your BIO I see that you really prefer to get it right in the field (me too) as opposed to 'Digital Art".  Folks like Ansel Adams also did the equivalent of 'digital art'' in their time of B&W with dodging, burning and other chemical techniques.

Focus stacking is another software process to get around problems of DOF but with a good wide-angle this is not really required. I have seen some landscape images here where when you are about a foot from the foreground two images are taken - one with the focus on the foreground and then the 2nd focused at infinity. This produces wonderful clarity. And all you are doing is getting around current limitations of the DSLR and the lens used to capture the image.

All the very best and keep up the very fine work you are doing.

Hi Tony,

Thanks for putting so much thought into any of my images.  I am aware of the things you mention.  I have a question about your comment: "I have seen some landscape images here where when you are about a foot from the foreground two images are taken - one with the focus on the foreground and then the 2nd focused at infinity."  Not sure what you mean with this; all my images are single images.  To achieve infinite focus within an image I use knowledge of a hyper focal distance of the lens.  Regards, Jeff 

Jeff - I was not referring to your images but to some I have seen by mark Geistweite re the two image focus stack/blend.