Etosha Stormscape

[Morkel Erasmus]

The famous Okaukuejo waterhole in Etosha National Park, Namibia.
The rains brought some nice clouds and colours to this sunset, unfortunately the rains also ensured no animals needed to come for a sunset drink :Whoa!:.

Single exposure, love the D800 sensor's dynamic range, usually this would have required at least 2 exposures blended with my other cameras. Slight crop from top only for presentation (not much going on there but blue hour clouds without form and structure).

Techs:
Nikon D800
Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 27mm
Kenko Pro CPL
f8.0 | 1.3s | ISO-100

[Don Railton]

Hi Morkel

Very interesting countryside, and I am sorry there were no animals for you.. Interested to know how you took this, there is light coming in from the lower LHS yet the sun is setting apparently right in from of us.. Did you have car light or a campfire off to your left?? For me I think the blue is just a little too strong, I think I would like this slightly warmer and maybe the tree a little further away from the LH border, (ie maybe take a big step or two to the left) but aside from that well done... Not sort of tree that is but it features in a lot of landscapes from this part of the world... and drive to get over there is becoming more and more irresistible.

DON

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Don - the light is from floodlights installed to aid you in viewing the nighttime animal activity at the waterhole, I toned down the colour and luminance of it quite a bit to make it more natural.

it was the "blue hour" so I decided to keep the blues (albeit a bit desaturated already)

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Maybe a little too blue in the clouds but a great shot, Morkel! I actually like the absence of animals as it forces the attention to the nice but deserted landscape. A shot 100% representative of what Etosha is about! Nice!

[Don Railton]

Hi Morkel, I'm looking at this on my iPad this time and the blues look about right now...I think I need to qualify my colour comments with the 'using an uncalibrated monitor' disclosure in future.. Going to an ezio workshop next week, just to keep the dream going.

Regards
Don.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Dvir Barkay]

very nice shot, I like the texture in the clouds, and the beautiful landscape. Maybe a bit of dodging and burning of the edges would help make the viewer concentrate more on the center pool.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Nice image, Morkel. Blue seems fine to me - it gives nice dusk feel to the image. Might darken the bottom though - especially the LLC.

[Arthur Morris]

Lovely. Sorry about the lack of elephants and giraffes :) The pinks, blues, and the foreground oval are all pluses.