Boston sunset

Plasmodium

Wonderful sunset last night. Pics taken with my 300D and Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 XR Di. 3-stop ND filter used on pic #2. The Lab adjustments have really been growing on me, and I employed them for both pictures. I also sharpened in Lab and converted to lighten and darken layers in RGB, as suggested.

Exif:
#1 1/60 at f/2.8 and ISO 400, focal length 54mm

#2 8s at f/20 and ISO 100, focal length 60mm

USAIR

Paul
Both beautiful photos
Great colors nice touch with boat and jet

Thanks
Fred

rutt

The boat and plane really do make the first shot. Great colors; I'm glad the LAB recipe is working for you. What did the L curve look like?

Dixie

Lose the muddy foreground and go pano and I believe you will have two great shots. Hope you don't mind as I took the liberty to show you what I mean below.

rutt

Dixie wrote:

Lose the muddy foreground and go pano and I believe you will have two great shots. Hope you don't mind as I took the liberty to show you what I mean below.

Great crops!

Dixie

Here is one other possible treatment of the second photo. Please don't take offense at these offerings as they are just another person's way of looking at the same scene. Put 10 photographers on the same shore looking at the same sunset and there would be at least 200 treatments/interpretations of the same scene. :

Dixie

rutt wrote:

Great crops!

Thanks rutt.

zigzag

At some point last night, I looked out of my car window and grimaced because I wasn't near my camera or a suitable location. Great captures!

DRT-Maverick

The photos are great! I like the coloration implements that dixie performed. Though there is one thing that bugs me in the photo. It's the eyesore that I have circled (dunno what it is.) Though the eyesore isn't photographer indused.




Here's it with that removed.

Plasmodium

Dixie wrote:

Lose the muddy foreground and go pano and I believe you will have two great shots. Hope you don't mind as I took the liberty to show you what I mean below.

I apprecite the feedback, though I have to say I don't care for the modifications that have been made. The most interesting part of the composition to me are the reflections in the little tidal pools, which is actually why I chose that specific shot (and half waded out into the muck).

In all honesty I really really dislike panoramic aspect ratios, and as a general rule I will never crop my photos unless I've composed them a priori to be cropped that way. Panoramas work for me only in one situation: when there are clearly foreground, middleground, and background subjects. In my pictures, I specifically composed the picture with the reflections in the foreground tide pools in mind. When you crop those out you eliminate the foreground (and much of the middleground), leaving only the backdrop of the skyline. Furthermore, because the camera is pointing perpendicularly to the skyline, the panoramic crop eliminates all sense of depth in the picture. As a rule I almost always present my photos in a 2x3 or 6x7 aspect ratios.

Next, the color changes don't look anything like it looked in real life. There was a very focused area of orange and red on the horizon, and the rest of the sky faded to yellow and then blue as you looked up from the skyline. The orange water makes it look very cartoonish to me. The water was blue in real life. None of my curves changes altered reality other than removing a slight greenish cast on the water, enhancing the green of the foliage, and deepening the midtones.

Lastly, I really would prefer that you ask permission before modifying my pictures, as a lot of thought goes into planning, executing, and presenting my pictures in a particular way.

Plasmodium

rutt wrote:

The boat and plane really do make the first shot. Great colors; I'm glad the LAB recipe is working for you. What did the L curve look like?

The L curve was actually not too different than I normally make it in RGB. I basically made an S curve to lift some highlights and deepen some shadows, though there was a little bit of a zigzag in the upper midtones to improve some contrast between the clouds.

rutt

Plasmodium wrote:

Lastly, I really would prefer that you ask permission before modifying my pictures, as a lot of thought goes into planning, executing, and presenting my pictures in a particular way.

It's sort of the way it's done on dgrin. On FM you have to ask permission before you edit and post. Here you have to make it clear that you don't want people to do it. If I were you and wanted to make sure people didn't play with my shots, I'd put something in my signature and also maybe use a "custom user title". Else it's going to happen over and over again.

I liked the crop, but it was a nice shot before, too, BTW.

Plasmodium

DRT-Maverick wrote:

The photos are great! I like the coloration implements that dixie performed. Though there is one thing that bugs me in the photo. It's the eyesore that I have circled (dunno what it is.) Though the eyesore isn't photographer indused.

What you've circled is a pylon of some sort in the water. This is a big recreational boating lane, and it stands right in front of one of the runways at Logan Int'l Airport. It would be a great compositional element if it stood higher and therefore stood out from the skyline more.

This isn't my best picture ever, but it shows that same object that you've circled.

Plasmodium

rutt wrote:

It's sort of the way it's done on dgrin. On FM you have to ask permission before you edit and post. Here you have to make it clear that you don't want people to do it. If I were you and wanted to make sure people didn't play with my shots, I'd put something in my signature and also maybe use a "custom user title". Else it's going to happen over and over again.

I liked the crop, but it was a nice shot before, too, BTW.

Gotcha. I'm very active on phototakers, where modding other people's photos without express permission can get you in trouble.

DRT-Maverick

Plasmodium wrote:

What you've circled is a pylon of some sort in the water. This is a big recreational boating lane, and it stands right in front of one of the runways at Logan Int'l Airport. It would be a great compositional element if it stood higher and therefore stood out from the skyline more.

This isn't my best picture ever, but it shows that same object that you've circled.

The pylon (woohoo now I know what those are) looks good when it's clearly defined from the rest of the image as a seperate element rather than just something that seems to stick out of the city. I guess you can use the dodge tool or something to bring it out more, make it more of a seperate element rather than a uh, gah I forget the stinkin' word, but it's like the 'telephone pull from the person's head' thing.

Good shot though, I clearly understand why you wouldn't want it cropped.

Dixie

I apprecite the feedback, though I have to say I don't care for the modifications that have been made. The most interesting part of the composition to me are the reflections in the little tidal pools, which is actually why I chose that specific shot (and half waded out into the muck).

Paul, my sincere apology for "playing" with your snapshots. I've removed my attachments. As I stated the modifications were just one person's view of the scene. In your opinion the most interesting portion are the reflections in the little tidal pools. IMHO, they are the least interesting and detract from the overall scene. To each his own.

In all honesty I really really dislike panoramic aspect ratios, and as a general rule I will never crop my photos unless I've composed them a priori to be cropped that way. Panoramas work for me only in one situation: when there are clearly foreground, middleground, and background subjects. In my pictures, I specifically composed the picture with the reflections in the foreground tide pools in mind. When you crop those out you eliminate the foreground (and much of the middleground), leaving only the backdrop of the skyline. Furthermore, because the camera is pointing perpendicularly to the skyline, the panoramic crop eliminates all sense of depth in the picture. As a rule I almost always present my photos in a 2x3 or 6x7 aspect ratios.

I love the way you follow your own "rules" as shown in the two images from your gallery - especially when knocking another person's perception of a scene. Nice shots by the way and very nicely done panos even if they don't follow your "rules."

Next, the color changes don't look anything like it looked in real life. There was a very focused area of orange and red on the horizon, and the rest of the sky faded to yellow and then blue as you looked up from the skyline. The orange water makes it look very cartoonish to me. The water was blue in real life. None of my curves changes altered reality other than removing a slight greenish cast on the water, enhancing the green of the foliage, and deepening the midtones.

I called them treatments/interpretations and fully intended them for that and never made a claim of "reality." I was referring rather to a vision of the scene. In fact, my exact statement was, "...they are just another person's way of looking at the same scene. Put 10 photographers on the same shore looking at the same sunset and there would be at least 200 treatments/interpretations of the same scene."

Lastly, I really would prefer that you ask permission before modifying my pictures, as a lot of thought goes into planning, executing, and presenting my pictures in a particular way.

Don't fret it as I don't plan on responding to any more of your image posts. ...and I wish you and your Rebel many happy days of picture taking together.

Plasmodium

I appreciate your attention to my gallery, pointing a couple nice examples of what a skyline panorama can look at when intentionally composed that way. Incidentally, those weren't cropped, but rather stitches of 6 and 10 shots, respectively. The first panorama actually exemplifies quite well my ideals for a panorama -- foreground (the reflections and the texture in the water), middle ground (the boats), and background (the skyline). The second panorama is actually not very much to my liking, because it looks very flat and uninteresting. But one's styles and tastes, of course, change with time and experimentation, and I feel quite comfortable displaying it anyway, as it appealed to me at the time.

I don't mean to express ingratitude for well-thought out critiques, but in general I find that critiques should be very much directed towards the aesthetic intentions of the photographer. To merely lop off 1/2 of a photo misses the point -- it's like looking at a family portrait and suggesting that the picture would be better if you just cropped out your dad and brother.

Finally, any suggestion, from you or anyone else, is welcome; but realize before you crop and repost it that I'm presenting here what I feel is the best version of my photograph. I'm not interested in having '10 different' crops and color corrections and then having people vote on your version versus mine. What I'm interested in are thoughtful suggestions about subject choice, composition, framing, exposure, and post-processing based on inference as to what my picture is trying to communicate.

dixie wrote:

and I wish you and your Rebel many happy days of picture taking together

Alas, $20,000 of camera equipment is beyond this enthusiast's budget, but my Rebel and I will indeed continue to have many happy days of picture taking together. Thanks for the wishes.

Dixie

Some how I feel that you missed the entire point of my posts. They were, in fact, talking about your composition. My suggestion, which reflects my view on the matter, is that it would have been better as a pano in this case (it is quite apparent that you don't agree). Don't muddy the water with whether a picture was cropped or not. In reality, I would have shot multiple shots and stitched. My purpose with showing the crop, not having the benefit of being there to shoot it live, was to crop your photo to show you my vision of a composition which I thought would improve the presentation under the conditions as I could see them. That doesn't make mine better, but rather suggested an alternative to your photo since by posting it I felt that you were asking for comments and suggestions in general.

A few words about what you were attempting to do with the photo would probably have help. With a descriptive summary of what you were trying to accomplish, I would have restricted any comments that I had as to how well you did against your stated goal or given you suggestions on how to better reach them. Without any descriptive summary, I mistook your intention and commented on what I was seeing as a whole. Without any idea of what you were trying to do with the foreground, all I saw was a distraction to what I took as a nice cityscape and sunset. We are not mind readers and sometimes the photographer's intentions are not readily apparent in the image itself. ...or in lieu of a descriptive summary, specify exactly which area or topic you wish covered with comments or suggestions.

As to the colorized water, again a suggestion on another treatment as I saw it along with a clarification that any number of photographers would see and interpret the scene differently. Again, it was only a suggestion as to another way of looking at it. I know of no prohibition in the world of photography which would disallow the technique. ...and at no time did I say that it was better, only that it was a different view of the same scene.

...and finally, to the 8 second treatment for the second photograph. Nice results with the water.

mereimage

Plasmo....................I could tell on 1st look that you left the foreground in on purpose and I agree it adds to the picture. I still feel this image can be improved with judicious cropping. I get somewhat distracted by the three even bands running horizontally across the 1st picture. Cropping ~ 1/2 the foreground brings the horizon into better balance and cropping a little from the L side rebalances the horizontal. Slight diff. cuves for the foreground , water and sky will also help. I would post a quick example of what I mean but I don't want to get flamed. Also a little of the orange tint in the sky reflected in the foreground water would help tie it alltogether. All in all I like the 1st shot. Dgrin has a wide range of photographers from very accomplished to beginners and there is freq a lot of disc re: improving images and diff. interpretations and posting of examples...thats how many of us learn here. Many other forums are much more proprietary in there approach... but seem to teach much less if at all.............We appreciate your contribution to our forum and look foreward to future posts....................................Mereimage

erich6

I for one appreciate what Dixie was trying to communicate with her posts. This is a matter of opinion, but many people get a better appreciation for how to compose a photograph by seeing different alternative interpretations of a scene.

The intended goal of this picture was not evident and therein lies part of the problem. They are good photographs, no doubt, but a great photograph communicates a clear message and when someone looks at it there is no other reaction other than "Ah...wonderful". It's like listening to a melody and knowing that there is no other way the notes could have been composed other than that.

I have never been able to make a picture like that and I doubt many people have. That's certainly true here.

Erich

DavidTO

Dixie wrote:

Don't fret it as I don't plan on responding to any more of your image posts. ...and I wish you and your Rebel many happy days of picture taking together.

That's really unfortunate.

DavidTO

I much prefer the first. The plane and the boat. Yep, they make it.

The one comment I would make is that the buildings seem a bit gray. I'm not going to say that I could curve this shot any better--I get that it's a very touchy image and tough to get the curves just right. I just don't buy that the skyline was gray like that. It doesn't look real. It's not far off, but I'd like to see the buildings just a few points blacker.

This is exactly the kind of exposure that I would have a really hard time with. Good job.