Great Falls National Park

eoren1

Taken from the Virginia side. Processed Raw files with Photomatix.

anwmn1

Sweet lordy I need to visit that place!!

Lighting in the 3rd is superb- can you adjust the 1st and 2nd to match?

Llywellyn

Okay, now you're starting to scare me. I went out there yesterday for some shooting since the weather was so nice!

I like the first best for its composition (just lovely) and would love to see more contrast overall, and perhaps a little oomph in the ground exposure without blowing out the water on the far right too badly.

Very nice. Thanks for sharing!

eoren1

anwmn1 wrote:

Sweet lordy I need to visit that place!!

Lighting in the 3rd is superb- can you adjust the 1st and 2nd to match?

Thanks for the comments.
1 and 2 were posted in Photomatix. 3 in Lightroom.
I redid 1 and 2 in LR and got this:

swintonphoto

Hmm... I actually like the first versions better. I like the sky and water having a similar tone. But, it's probably just me...

schmoo

Sorry to throw another opinion in here, but I prefer the edits! The tones are warmer and seem to more closely resemble what you'd expect to see in the evening when the sun is at that low angle. Perhaps a tad on the magenta side but I like the warmth, definitely!

I absolutely love the kayakers giving perspective to the scene. I've seen some photos of this area but didn't know the falls were that big. Yikes! I have to pop down and visit this place sometime myself.

anwmn1

Hmm- 1st one now seems too green.

Second one is right on though. Unlike Schmoo I would crop the bottom up to the middle of the rocks (there bye cropping out the kayakers).

With the kayakers - the main water fall is almost dead center and the kayakers as well as the water going off the frame in that direction really draw you away from the sweet spot. I think by cropping them out you are left with a shot that the main water fall is below center and provides a fluid movement of the eyes. Just flows better- no pun intended

The kayakers are cool but I think it is even better without them. Then again you can have both!

Sam

Really nice. I think I could spend a whole day there easy.

Sam

Glory2Jesus4Photography

I like the second ones better myself as well. nice photos all together though

eoren1

Thanks for all the comments.
I think the difference in the water color comes from using a polarizer to both slow the shutter speed and try to tone down reflections. It actually worked better when I had it emphasizing the reflections as in the portrait oriented shot.
I'll spend some more time with LR to see if I can get the colors better. Haven't played with the individual color hue/saturations on these shots...yet. I'm glad you pushed me to go back and see what I could do in LR with these shots. After playing with some of those sliders (and toning down the brightness), I was amazed with how different the picture looked from the Photomatix attempts.
As far as the kayakers, I'm planning on keeping them in for the sense of scale. Given the shutter speeds of 1.3-2 seconds, you won't believe how many frames I have where those two are blurred.
More to come!
E

cwphotos

Your second set was much better. the first set I didnt like the blue cast at all. Great images.

philiphutson

eoren1 wrote:

Thanks for all the comments.
I think the difference in the water color comes from using a polarizer to both slow the shutter speed and try to tone down reflections. It actually worked better when I had it emphasizing the reflections as in the portrait oriented shot.
I'll spend some more time with LR to see if I can get the colors better. Haven't played with the individual color hue/saturations on these shots...yet. I'm glad you pushed me to go back and see what I could do in LR with these shots. After playing with some of those sliders (and toning down the brightness), I was amazed with how different the picture looked from the Photomatix attempts.
As far as the kayakers, I'm planning on keeping them in for the sense of scale. Given the shutter speeds of 1.3-2 seconds, you won't believe how many frames I have where those two are blurred.
More to come!
E

Next time you could do two shots to handle things like the kayakers. Take one multi-second shot to get the water right then do a fast shot (fast enough for the moving subject). Drop the second shot on the first and then add a layer mask 'hide all' to the shot you dropped on top, then just delete the layer mask over the kayakers so they are the only thing that shows through from the second fast shot.
-Philip

Giphsub

Gee, I didn't even notice the kayakers till Schmoo pointed them out! Those are some big falls!

Nice shots, and I like the LR edits better

Awais Yaqub

Love the edit versions ! superb

Aaron Jors

Nice shots. In my opinion there is no comparison, the lightroom version look alot better.

Tango

those are great, thanks!

and i too like the LR versions

eoren1

Thanks again everyone. I still haven't had a chance to play with the individual colors in LR but will post when I can. I used to think Photomatix for all things HDR but it looks like, given a single RAW, LR can hold it's own as far as squeezing out wide dynamic range. I'll still use Photomatix when I combine bracketed shots.
E