Piper Pond sunset - a lesson in patience

mtully

I was at Piper Pond in Abbot, Maine last weekend. I sensed that the conditions were ripe for a scenic sunset and told my friends I wanted to go to a spot on the east side of the water to shoot. They told me they could take me to a couple of spots to consider. The first spot they took me to had a semi-clear view to the west and a nice boat for a foreground object. With those two conditions met, I decided to stay right there rather than continue to scout while the nice light faded. I set up and began bracketing shots before the sun set, as seen in the first shot.

After about 15 minutes my friends could all see that the sunset was winding down and were probably wondering why I was still snapping away. They seemed to be a bit restless, so I decided this sunset was done and we all started walking home. When we got up to the road I looked up and saw tentacles of red in the sky directly above me like a color bomb had gone off. I excused myself and ran down to the pond and shot off a couple more brackets. The second shot is one of them. I learned that you have to wait about 10 minutes after you think a sunset is expired before officially declaring it dead.

Both shots are from 3 exposures +- 2EV tonemapped in Photomatix and touched up in Photoshop Elements. Camera is a Nikon D40 with Nikkor 12-24mm @ 12mm, F9 ISO 200
Thanks for looking - Mike

cmkultradome

Really like the first one! The second one is a little overdone for my taste but it is a beautiful sky.

Stephanie

kevincaophotography

#1 is great! #2 is a bit too much (for me personally). But as cmk ^ said, the sky is absolutely beautiful in #2.

AndMan

kevincaophotography wrote: »

#1 is great! #2 is a bit too much (for me personally). But as cmk ^ said, the sky is absolutely beautiful in #2.

topcat374

cmkultradome wrote: »

Really like the first one! The second one is a little overdone for my taste but it is a beautiful sky.

Stephanie

+1 Great shots:)

squirl033

the HDR in the second shot is definitely a bit much, but practice will help that. you definitely learned a valuable lesson with respect to sunsets, though... the best colors almost invariably come between 10 and 30 minutes after the sun actually goes below the horizon!

mtully

Thanks for the comments everyone. I played around with #2 and finally discovered what the shadows smoothing and shadows clipping sliders were for. Squirl033 had it right. I still need practice.

rhituraj

cmkultradome wrote: »

Really like the first one! The second one is a little overdone for my taste but it is a beautiful sky.

Stephanie

First one is great!