Giant's Bathtub

gluwater

This is Giant's bathtub in Matthiessen State Park, IL. It was the first time I have been to this park and really enjoyed it. The overcast skies were a godsend for the types of shots I was taking and a circular polerizer was also a great tool for the day. Critique is welcome.

thdizzy

Nick - I see the works of great image here.

However, here are my three things that bother me.

1. Cloud (?) reflection middle lower left. Very distracting considering the rest of the image has a great flow.

2. Horizon seems to tilt to the right.

3. Seems the swirling pool in the foreground, which is a great LE look, is a separate body of water with a border that cuts through the upper 1/3 of the image.

Sorry about the detailed critique but I think you can nail this

wxwax

How cool!

Really, the pool feels cut off a bit, i'd like to see more of it.

Love the colors and your exposure, very nice. You might consider going back with a neutral density filter, try for longer exposures.

gluwater

wxwax wrote:

How cool!

Really, the pool feels cut off a bit, i'd like to see more of it.

Love the colors and your exposure, very nice. You might consider going back with a neutral density filter, try for longer exposures.

Longer exposure? I already used a .3ND, .9ND, and a circular polerizer stacked to get 30 seconds on this shot. Any longer and I'd have to use bulb! Thanks for looking Sid.

gluwater

thdizzy wrote:

Nick - I see the works of great image here.

However, here are my three things that bother me.

1. Cloud (?) reflection middle lower left. Very distracting considering the rest of the image has a great flow.

2. Horizon seems to tilt to the right.

3. Seems the swirling pool in the foreground, which is a great LE look, is a separate body of water with a border that cuts through the upper 1/3 of the image.

Sorry about the detailed critique but I think you can nail this

Todd thank you for taking the time to critique my image. I have to agree with all three points you mentioned. As I mentioned to wxwax I used a circular polerizer to cut down on the glare but I could not get rid of it completely. I wish the reflection was not there but I could not get rid of it. I wasn't sure about the horizon being off but I have heard the same comment from others so I will rotate it. Finally there this is a pool on teh edge of the stream so you are correct that this is a separate body of water, the stream flows past it, therefore causing the wirlpool effect. I was standing on a set of stairs leading up to the top of the falls and would have liked to use a wider angle but I either got the stairs in the frame or the sky which caused a loss of contrast from flare. I have a couple other angles of the pool, I'll have to go through them to see what I can find. Again, thank you for taking the time to critique.

BTW it is almost impossible to see through the viewfinder with stacked ND filters and a circ pol.

gluwater

Here I found another but in landscape orientation. So which do you like better?

LilleG

gluwater wrote:

Here I found another but in landscape orientation. So which do you like better?

Much better! The orientation works better and so does the straight horizon.

Lee

thdizzy

gluwater wrote:

Here I found another but in landscape orientation. So which do you like better?

Landscape version is much, much better

Did you tilt in PS a little too or did you just capture the horizon a little better with this one?

DoctorIt

the landscape is worlds better - they draw of this photo is the swirling, which is badly cutoff in the first version.

Awais Yaqub

Wonderful i loved landscape version

ChrisJ

Very cool shot, the 2nd composition is definitely an improvement.

David_S85

I agree also with others on the landscape version. The addition of the tree branches gives it more depth than the portrait version had. The water swirls make more sense in this composition contrasting with the standing water on the right. Too bad about the sky reflection though.

gluwater

thdizzy wrote:

Landscape version is much, much better

Did you tilt in PS a little too or did you just capture the horizon a little better with this one?

All I did to this one was some sharpening, darkening the midtones and played with the highlights a little. This is full frame with no cropping or skewing.

gluwater

DoctorIt wrote:

the landscape is worlds better - they draw of this photo is the swirling, which is badly cutoff in the first version.

Thanks Erik. For some reason I have a tendency to shoot landscapes in Portrait orientation so I usually pick those shots over landscape orientation . But I think you are right, this case calls for a horizontal landscape.

gluwater

Thanks for looking Lee, Awais and Chris. I appreciate it.

gluwater

David_S85 wrote:

Too bad about the sky reflection though.

Sure, rub it in David. I'll post this same shot when I get home without the circ pol so you can see what I was dealing with.

surly

yup, much better
I am drawn right into this one.
What a cool feature to be able to shoot

Owen

Does the water actually go down somewhere.. like a drain? :P

firedancing4life

Landscape scores. It really shows how wide that pool is.

I also love how the slower shutter speed and leaves show the path of the water. Very interesting shot.