Could use some help here

Jack'll do

I have recently joined a large photography club in the DC area most of whose members are extremely talented artisans. I am about to enter two images in a juried competition in which "Water" must be a significant element. One involves waves crashing against a rocky shore with a young man defying it's fury. Another is a shot of a waterfall. I shot this waterfall image with a Sony a7r at iso50 with a cpf (I did not have an ND filter so instead of siilky smooth water I have a series of streamlets like fine white hairs which I kind of like). The Sony has a 36 MP sensor which produces an image of 7360 x 4912 pixels. Rather than submitting the waterfal image itself, I have taken a series of 100% crops to show a more detailed image of the rocks and water. I would really appreciate your thoughts on whether to go with Full waterfall or one of the crops along with the crashing waves image. Thanks in advance for your opinions.

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AlexShark

I like the first one, with the young man. The others are good, but "ordinary" -- there're millions of those.

Now, focussing on #1: I'd do it even tighter, crop off 1/3 from Left and 1/4 from Top. This would offer greater dynamism, I hope. At full size examination, I find the photo over sharpened, the young man has halos all around. (Frankly, I find all of these photos over sharpened.)

Nice set!

Jack'll do

AlexShark wrote: »

I like the first one, with the young man. The others are good, but "ordinary" -- there're millions of those.

Now, focussing on #1: I'd do it even tighter, crop off 1/3 from Left and 1/4 from Top. This would offer greater dynamism, I hope. At full size examination, I find the photo over sharpened, the young man has halos all around. (Frankly, I find all of these photos over sharpened.)

Nice set!

Thanks for your honest critique. I think, in trying to pull out all the texture and detail in the objects I photograph, I may sometimes go well beyond what my unaided eyes really were able to see when viewing the subject. But I question whether this is necessarily a bad thing. After all, if the texture wasn't there, no amount of sharpening would reveal it. Here is the original Raw image of the waterfall converted to jpg with no adjustments whatsoever except for the default sharpening added by Capture One, along with the raw img with some added contrast, brightness and saturation but no extra sharpening added by me. I do agree that the crops are oversharpened but I don't think tthat is the case with the waterfall img. I do agree that the waterfall is quite ordinary (that's why I played around with the crops

SOOC Raw->jpg



contrast,brightness,saturation then Raw_>jpg



Waterfall Img in original post

boco

heel mooie reeks.
grt,boco.

Stumblebum

John, these are fabulous!clap
#3 and #4 are simply fantastic!
I loved the first version of the water fall shots!
I would go with #1 as well and yes, slight crop, half inch from top and little over quarter from left, would keep attention on the star of the show! JMO!
Which waterfall is this?

Jack'll do

boco wrote: »

heel mooie reeks.
grt,boco.

dankie Boco bly jy hou van hulle

kdog

The waterfall shots are "cracking good". The crops you get out that Sony are insane, and definitely giving me moment for pause. I think I have to agree that the first one though is a really unique moment as opposed to the waterfall which is there all the time. Try setting the white point and giving it a bit of an S curve boost and see if you don't like the result.

black mamba

I don't care how many millions of waterfall shots there are, when they're as good as the first one you presented ( #2 on your post ) they're worthy of being presented anywhere.

I, too, like the first image. Some judicious cropping would probably add to the dynamics present, but the ingredients are already there and they make for a winning entry.

Good luck, Jack.

Tom

Jack'll do

Stumblebum wrote: »

John, these are fabulous!clap
#3 and #4 are simply fantastic!
I loved the first version of the water fall shots!
I would go with #1 as well and yes, slight crop, half inch from top and little over quarter from left, would keep attention on the star of the show! JMO!
Which waterfall is this?

Thanks Taz, I appreciate your comments. I am really loving my new Sony a7r and Zeiss 24-70 lens that I shot the waterfall with. The first image is from a few years ago shot with my D700.

hawkeye978

I think I like #1 the best because of the dynamic nature. I agree it could use a little tighter crop. Also, I fell that your subjects are the boy and the wave. But the boy is one of the darkest parts of the picture so he isn't being emphasized. Maybe pull up the shadows a little to get him to stand out more and perhaps darken up the rocks to also give him a little more emphasis.

lifeinfocus

I would go with #2. The framing with the flowers and rock in front/left, lighting and smoothness of the flow looks great to me.

#1 tells a good story with the young man and crashing wave, but I think it needs more than cropping.

Good luck,

Phil