In the stillness

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Thanks

Yinka

Yinka, where's the light source coming from? The exposure is remarkable! I think I would actually hang this on the wall if it wasn't for man made stuff in it...except for the pickets leading into the beach. Nice one.

you mite want to get rid of the steel hand rail :D nice work

I would probably crop the right side.

Nice... I agree crop out the right.

Yinka

 

I have been following your work for some time on P.net but this is one of the best in your portfolio. Absolutely fantastic exposure. While I can see the argument for cropping the right hand side, I also feel it adds to showing off the amazing lighting here. Was this natural light or a flood light of some sort? I would be greatful if you would share the secret of using nd filters as I have tried and find it impossible to see the grad through the view finder. Do you just add the filter and use multi segment metering? Or is the correct technique to lock the exposure for the foreground then add the filter? Once again great capture

 

Best Regards

 

Phil.

 

PS I am away working with no pc at my disposal all week so please dont be offended if I dont respond straight away to any reply.

Thanks Will and Phil (waxing lyrical there!)

 

I truly appreciate your kind comments. Actually, with this photo, the foreground was intially much darker. I created a layer, adjusted the levels of the foreground to make it more revealing, and then erased the new layer off the top half.

 

Also the photo had a very heavy color cast; the blue was extremely blue and supersaturated, so cut down a bit on the blue saturation. Otherwise the image is unmodified apart from sharpening.

 

About the GND filters, I have found them problematic too. However what I do now is use one over the lighter sky and generally just expose with no compensation. Recently this has worked pretty well for me. I have a Hitech 0.9 soft edge and a 0.6 hard edge. Sometimes I even stack them together.

 

With the hard edge you can see the transition point and position that to the sky-sea divide.

 

Best wishes and thanks again

 

Yinka

I tend just to use aperture priority and the default metering of my Canon Digital Rebel XT. Occasionally, depending on the scene, will use exposure compensation. Something I have been doing recently, and that I HIGHLY recommend, is checking your histograms before you leave the scene, immediately after you take a photo

Yinka, thanks for the invaluable tips. I'll have to try the dup layer trick. Where do you find these tips Yinka?

Actually, I got a Photoshop book for Christmas. While it may not be the very best book (it is rated very highly, but then I am a total beginner) it is easy to read and follow. It has tips on exposure, balance, sharpening etc. It is Adobe Photoshop 7 for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. I recommend it.

 

While I have not had time to sit down and read it, basic principles, such as layers and then changing Levels to optimize exposure and erasing over the areas you do not want to change, are invaluable.

 

As for the histograms, once you realize that exposure can be shown on the histograms, and you have made the mistake of totally bad pictures (even though they looked great on the LCD), you are forced, in unpredictable lighting, to use histograms

 

Thanks again and best wishes

 

Yinka

By the way, he ends his introduction by thanking the Lord Jesus Christ. I think that's wonderful.

So quite a few of us acknowledge the source of our inspiration:-)