Instant Sunset

First posting of a shot taken with my D70. Hints on how to improve my digital

technique would be greatly appreciated. Particularly adjusting white balance.

Hi John, my suggestion for improving this image is to use a fill flash for the dark areas. :-)

 

Great camera, isn't it? I got the same thing 2 weeks ago, and frankly rather overwhelmed with the 200+ page manual. I haven't exhaustively played with White Balance, but it's sure a pain compared to my old SONY. If I'm not mistaken, dynamic WB requires a tedious procedure of a separate shutter click (after you figure out the correct menu settings and buttons to push).

 

I find the camera offers great user control, but unfortunately, the extensive features aren't quite arranged in a user friendly manner. I suppose it'll take some time before we become accustomed to its design.

 

I briefly experimented with long exposure - pointed the camera toward a cloudy night sky, aperture wide open, noise reduction On, 15 seconds, ISO 1600, and saw more stars registered than I can shake a stick at (the naked eye couldn't see anything but the brightest nearby planets). Now that I have a sense of its capabilities, the next step is to find a suitable subject to experiment further.

 

Will be keeping an eye out for your new posts, John. :-)

Nice colors.

ANOTHER NOTHING SUNSET

Thank you for commenting Michael, Christopher and Harold.

 

Michael, I am also finding the manual on the D70 to be exhausting to read. I have gotten through a quarter of it. I am glad to hear that you have a D70 as I respect your diligence in learning new technique and exploring capabilities. I am sure that I will pick up a couple of tips from you along the way. Hopefully I can reciprocate.

 

Fill flash in this instance would probably not help as the closest object in this photo is a mile and a half from the front of my lens. A graduated ND filter would have been more help, but I opted not to use one here because I am trying to get a better sense of the camera's capabilities before I play with filters and such.

 

I will be posting more photos in a week or so once the perpetual stream of summer visitors to my home thins out and I have a little more free time for posting.

Thanks, John. I will also be posting some test shots at some point - if I ever manage a decent one.

 

I was kidding about the fill flash. :�

Missed that you were joking about the fill flash. Probably timing as to when I read the comment 5 AM on a Monday morning. Way too early to be perceptive and a colorless sunrise to compound things.

Oh, forgot to mention, John, I would highly recommend joining a YAHOO group, [Nikon-D70], which is very active and currently a running thread on White Balance issues.

Okay I joined. Of course the WB discussion centered on white balance on ice, since my tip to join came from Canada I thought it was appropriate. Seemed interesting regarding the cycling rates of lighting that seem to have an effect on producing consistent results frame to frame after setting the WB. I better read the rest of my manual. Thanks Michael:)

 

John

John,

If you want suggestions on how to improve it might be helpful to post lens and exposure details.

I'm a sucker for sunsets myself too. For this one I might offer the following (much of this goes for several of your other shots too):

• shot does not look entirely sharp (treeline). Could be the jpeg compression going on here (but that's why I'd be interested in lens and exposure details - makes it easier to judge what's going on).
• someone posted the very informative comment 'empty shot' - well.. it is a bit empty. Or maybe not - be if not then we can't see what we need to see. Do I see a lighthouse? If so, that's great (in terms of composition and for making a sunset more than just a sunset). But your lighthouse (if that's what it is) is too dark. And too tiny. Light it up and get closer. And off-center it a bit more while you're at it.
• ditto for the thingy in the water (bottom/left)
• In terms of composition, I find the water a bit strange. I would either drop the water altogether (though that would make for a very dark bottom), or give us some more water. In case of the latter, the reflection of the sunset in the water might add something to the shot too.
• In general, in order to make a sunset interesting, there should be more than just the setting sun in the shot. And whatever there is should be clearly visible.

Hope all this is somewhat useful? Feel free to disagree. And by all means shoot sunsets. Lots of them. If only for my personal viewing pleasure.

:)

Regards,

Tom

Thank you for commenting Tom. All your points are valid here. It is fairly rare that I record details such as focal length and exposure time. I should be able to look these up now with the D70, but I don't have access as I am answering from work. My guess is I used a 28 - 200 zoom probably at the 200 end. This was handheld which could explain the treeline and the water or it could have been just too windy to get a sharp exposure. The lighthouse and far shore are about two miles away from exposure location, so without a boat getting closer would be biblical :) A split ND would help here, but I wasn't too concerned with foreground detail as I was working on getting colors onto the digital camera. As for more sunsets, I am a sick individual with more sunsets in my portfolio than Midas has gold so chances are excellent that you will have more "nothing" sunsets from me. I do appreciate your comments and need to hear them if only to remind myself to not forget things I have learned previously, but don't always practise.

 

edit comment with image data

exposure was 1/80 at f 7.1 and zoom was set at 155mm (35mm equivelant would be between 200 and 225)