davidspeight

Stunning, perfect Black and White tones.

The Star trails are excellent, I still think this method looks better than the software generated stacked exposures. The way the tones of the mine buildings have seperated from the background is impressive, I guess it must be from moonlight. I have to get back to the Old Gang Mines soon, the place is full of atmosphere and I 've never been quite happy with the shots I've come away with so far, saying that for the most part when I have made the journey it's usually started chucking down just as I've arrived.

Cheers, Dave.

Alf, I took a look at your other shot but think this is way better. On the subject of foreground vs no foreground in my opinion there is no hard and fast rule that you can apply and in many cases instinct takes over. I often find myself giving elements in a photo a priority rating while composing, for instance if I was to apply that to this photo the sky is superb and I think it's worthy of the nearly 2/3 split. I find myself rating the mountains and the reflections the next strongest element so in this case I might have tried to show those without the rocky island, but I do like the inclusion of the small area of shoreline. Obviously this is all subjective, and when you are not at the actual location it's easy to think what you might do differently, however the resulting shot is very impressive despite any of this.

Best wishes, Dave.

Excellent shot, loads of mood and atmosphere. I like the motion blur, it works well against the sharp static buildings in the background. The only thing I might have done differently would be to move slightly left and while keeping the buildings where they are crop off the right handside posts which are neither in or out of the frame and create a bit of a distraction. Otherwise superb.

Stunning shot Zsolt, the natural colours and textures make for a fantastic foreground and the dark foreboding clouds overhead are typical of the area and really add drama.

Very well done,

Best, Dave

Its a fantastic viewpoint and composition Zsolt. I looked at your landscape version and preferred this one, but unlike Mark I would have liked to see it composed with the tarn just cropped off if possible and concentrating more on the lead in of the wall on the left and the mountains and the mist. The only other thing I would suggest is maybe losing some of the blue cast on the rocks. Hope this is helpful.

Cheers, Dave.

Foiled indeed. I see the same old names are appearing in your ratings page David.

Keep posting though I've sold a few prints lately to people who have seen my stuff on here.

By the way the sidelighting is excellent.

Dave.

Thats truly awesome David, the curve of the buildings seems to be mirrored by the swirling cloud. Very dramatic. The title did leave me scratching my head slightly though, never was any good at equations.

Best Wishes, Dave.

I think there is one or two things you could do to improve this. The composition is basically good but your focussing looks ever so slightly out. The rocks in the mid ground look sharper than the near rocks so you should be focussing slightly closer. It looks like you had some light hitting the top of the falls which is causing some burnout. There's a few ways you can get around this, one is to not shoot in bright conditions, another is to take multiple exposures metering for the highlights and shadows seperately then blend them together using layers in photoshop. Finally and it's a subjective issue, but a smaller aperture (giving a longer exposure time) would have shown more motion (blur) in the water, which I personally think gives a more natural look than water that is frozen in mid flight.

Hope this is helpful, good luck and best wishes.

Camilo,

Excellent shot. I enjoyed the last one from here that you posted but I think this composition minus the foreground works much better to my eye.

Regards, Dave.

Mark,

I think there's more to this than you give yourself credit for. The lighting is excellent and gives the plants some very good separation from the background and the depth of field is also spot on. It's amazing to see the amount of fine detail that can actually be captured and as usual your processing is also to a very high standard.

Regards, Dave.

Excellent stuff David,

I do like the results you are getting with the 5D. I can't say I have been a big fan of infrared in the past but in the examples of yours I've seen the effect doesn't look too overstated, as in some i've seen before where the Contrast is too much, for my eyes anyway. I especially liked the Parkhouse/Chrome Hill shots.

Keep posting and best wishes from Yorkshire.

Dave.

Beautiful image Leo,

The pixel bending filter is certainly adding a new twist and works very well here. That sky is amazing.

best wishes, Dave.

Very nice shot Marco,

great control of the highlights and very natural processing.

Alf,

This is a cracking shot and caught my attention the second I saw it, that sky is superb. The processing is also spot on. I know if I had been there I would have probably tried to get closer to the rock in the foreground and I'm not sure that would have worked out as well as your composition. In an attempt to offer up something useful my suggestion would be to maybe get down slightly lower and level the camera to try and lose the slight distortion on the right hand side, but it's a minor point.

Lovely shot John,

Very natural looking BW, I was drawn to this by those excellently captured foreground grasses and your not overly zealous processing.

Best wishes, Dave.

Very nice shot Lester, I like the dreaminess and atmosphere. Just goes to show you don't always need close foreground detail to make a great shot.

Regards, Dave.

Nice colours and composition, just wondering what made you select f22? You could have got away with f8-f11 at this kind of focal length thus using your lens to it's best ability. I would think this will suffer from some diffraction at large print size. A beautiful sunrise nonetheless.

All the best, David.

Excellent shot with great control of the highlights. It looks like all the elements came together at just the right time what with the breaking wave and the sun just peeking below the cloud cover. It's pretty much spot on as is but in an attempt to offer something constructive I think maybe dodging the darker area top left would make it perfect even though thats a very minor part of the image.

Wonderful shot Harry,

Great composition and very natural colouring, the reflections are superb. Not sure it would improve it any but did you try a little more contrast? It might just add a little more punch, although as I mentioned I do like the subtlety of the colours.

All the best, Dave.

Excellent, love the exaggerated perspective.

Mark,

yet again another superb image. I have to admit I used to be of the opinion that if an image took longer than five or ten minutes to process then it was bin fodder. I have now changed my views and have also been using many layers to add contrast and saturation in just the areas that (from my viewpoint anyway) require them. If the main aim of your many adjustments is to render the scene as closely to how you remember it then that has got to be right and this scene looks completely believable to me in both exposure and colour, simply stunning.

All the best, Dave. 

Mark, sorry for pushing you into the explanation, but at the same time a massive thanks. I'm afraid all that takes some digesting and my head is spinning slightly, so I'm going to copy it down and see if I can practice on some older images. I really wouldn't have thought it was possible to pull out such fine detail as you did here without halos appearing, so this has really opened my eyes to what is possible and I can see where it would be really useful. You've certainly used the technique to great effect here.

Cheers again Mark, I'm off to give it a go, will let you know how I get on.

Best wishes, Dave.

What I would like to know Mark is (and this should be evident from recent postings) how you are holding the fine details of the tree from turning pure black against the lighter sky. The processing is excellent, as is the scenery.

Regards, Dave.

John this looks like it could have been a challenge, finding a harmonious composition that is, it would have been for me anyway. The opposing diagonals of the shears against the wooden poles are what make it work for me. Excellent still life from the potting shed!!