Agawa River Sunrise #2

[Andrew McLachlan]

Here is another take on the previously posted sunrise over the Agawa River in Ontario's Lake Superior Provincial Park.

Nikon D800
Nikon 24-85mm lens @ 72mm
ISO 100
f16 @ 0.8 sec
Mirror-up
Singh Ray 2-stop Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Look forward to comments.

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[Don Nelson]

Andrew
Interesting composition and color.
I suspect you masked the foreground and darkened the sky?
To my eye it appears there are bright highlights peeking through the trees. At first I thought perhaps sharpening artifacts, but they were not consistent -- so I think that it might be that the masking wasn't refined in those areas, or that somehow the sky is a lot brighter through the openings in the trees. Or are these some weird artifact of shrinking to the little tiny JPG or the posting software on this site???
your thoughts?
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[Don Nelson]

Another tip off on the sky darkening -- almost always the water reflection is a stop or 1.5 stop darker than the sky,.....

[Don Railton]

Hi Andrew, Tell Don there were firefly's behind the trees..:t3

I prefer this comp over the previous, I think its because of the larger section of river bed in the foreground. I also like that you have captured the mist lifting and that there is a hint of detail in the trees.... Beautiful spot, I can see myself fly fishing there (i wish).

DON

[gail bisson]

I am no expert in landscapes but I can certainly tell you what I like!This is a very dramatic and powerful image.
Very dramatic colors and I like the lines created by the rocks in the foreground.
I find it neat that the patterns in the rocks mimic the pattern in the clouds.
I wish I could see a bit more detail in the trees on the left.
What is a neutral density filter? What does it do?
Why not do bracketed exposures and blend the 3 images?
Thanks for your time in explaining,
Gail

[dankearl]

I am a fan of amping up colors, but I would probably tone down the sky a bit.
I alos like this comp better than the first.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks folks for the comments....much appreciated.

Dan...the sky was quite intense on this morning...probably the most intense sunrise I have ever seen...will look into toning down slightly.

Gail...a down and dirty description of a graduated neutral density filter: it is essentially a rectangular piece of resin that is half dark and half clear (the dark will transition/fade to clear) and the darkened section of the filter can be placed over the brightest area of the scene to basically compress the contrast within a scene. Yes I could have captured 3 images and blended them, but the grad filter can, most of the time, capture it in one take which saves me time at the computer...not too mention I am too lazy to blend :S3:

Don...you are absolutely correct that the water reflections are always darker than the sky...thanks for noticing this as I missed it...in hindsight I perhaps should have used my 1-stop grad instead. I will darken up the water a little bit. As for the brighter areas you are seeing I have no clue...the RAW file and optimized version do not have them.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Andrew, looks like a nice sunrise. Overall the image is a bit "purple/magenta" for me - don't the Singh-Ray filters have known colour cast problems or have I got the rabbit by the tail here?

I would prefer more detail in the FG and midground (as with your most recent image).

I see what Don's referring to - if you use luminosity masks it should avoid getting those (if it's an artifact of selective sky adjustment to begin with).