Dawn Reflections

[bugster0121]

Love finding new places to capture images close to the house. Caught this image before work Monday at the Occoquan Reservoir in Prince William County, Virginia USA. This is an hdr (+/-2) at f8 1/30 sec 28 mm iso 100 with my 24-105 and 60d. C&C welcome and encouraged.

Thanks

[george013]

Love finding new places to capture images close to the house. Caught this image before work Monday at the Occoquan Reservoir in Prince William County, Virginia USA. This is an hdr (+/-2) at f8 1/30 sec 28 mm iso 100 with my 24-105 and 60d. C&C welcome and encouraged.

Thanks

I don't think you should use HDR. You eliminated the soul of dawn in this picture.

George

[mugge]

Nicely done. Maybe increase the contrast a tad. That is only my opinion.
Cheers Ole

[Rob Ekins]

I don't think you should use HDR. You eliminated the soul of dawn in this picture.

George

Care to elaborate on that theory?

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[george013]

Care to elaborate on that theory?

HDR is used to gain more detail when the gamut is to big for the camera. A sunset or sunrise picture is mostly a picture where the feeling is more important than the detail. In this picture it's the reddish sky.
Now the reflection in the water is lighter as the sky which is unnatural to me.
I would suggest to play with 1 of the three pictures and see how you can get more atmosphere/feeling in it.

George

[bugster0121]

Hi George, Ole, John & Robbie:

Thanks for all your responses. George thank you for your explanation as I was curious too. Above are two non hdr's the second is the first frame in the Hdr capture (i had cloned out a few branches after creating the hdr). The first is a non hdr pano, taken 20 minutes prior, where I was trying out some light painting. Agree that the initial Hdr is a bit bold and I have been attempting to tweak it some. Thanks for all of your feed back and look forward to seeing some more. I am still relatively new to DSLRs and post processing and the feedback is invaluable.

Thanks

Tim

[IzzieK]

Very nice, Tim...but can I ask you a favour? -- would you mind putting a space between your images so they do not flow from one onto another? Thanks...it will be easier to the eye too...

[bugster0121]

Thanks Izzie. I added the space. Funny on the mobile application it automatically added the space.

Tim

[NorthernFocus]

It is nice to be able to shoot near home. Particularly if close enough to pop outside on spur of the moment when the light is nice.

The sky and reflection are excellent. IMO the distant trees are a bit lighter than the mind expects them to be given the lighting conditions. Realizing that the foreground branches are positioned in a classic "framing" technique, IMO in this particular case they detract rather than add to an otherwise nicely composed image.

[chauncey]

Tim, you have a huge potential in that lake with it's calm, mirror-like surface. But I'm thinking
that you could spend some time finding a different place for your tripod. The framing branches that
Dan mentioned, in this case, don't work. Spend some time walking the parameter of the lake.

[bugster0121]

Hi William:

Thank you very much. Getting that same opinion from a couple others and tried re blending the hdr using couple diff programs. If and when my photo shop skills improve may try to custom blend a hdr and trim down some branches. Maybe tonight and tmrw AM going to revisit this area and see if a better composition is nearby. Agree this area has some potential.

Thanks

Tim

[george013]

Hi William:

Thank you very much. Getting that same opinion from a couple others and tried re blending the hdr using couple diff programs. If and when my photo shop skills improve may try to custom blend a hdr and trim down some branches. Maybe tonight and tmrw AM going to revisit this area and see if a better composition is nearby. Agree this area has some potential.

Thanks

Tim

I understood you shoot with a Canon but I don't know if you shoot RAW or JPG. Shoot also in RAW, playing with your WB afterwards can give excellent results. Personally I would forget about HDR, sunset or rise are no subject for HDR.

George

[bugster0121]

Hi George:

Yep shoot raw only and process most in lightroom.

Thanks

Tim