Blue hour in the Mara

[Morkel Erasmus]

A landscape taken with a super telephoto lens...sunsets in the Mara are magical, this was taken after sunset during "blue hour".

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f5.6 | 1/200 SS | ISO-2500

[David Stephens]

I too love using my super-telephoto for landscapes. You demonstrate how we gain not only foreground detail, but details on that distant ridge. The bottom, darker third, balances nicely with the brighter contrasting color of the upper two-thirds featuring the sky. I like that you were able to get just enough foreground color to show us that it's green. That cloud at the very top-left nicely rewards us for looking around that open sky and the eye goes from that foreground tree, up to the ridge, then to the sky and then to that upper left cloud. For a "quiet" scene, it generates a lot of eye movement for me.

I might play around with sky Contrast a bit, if it were mine, but I suspect that I'd end up about where you did.

[Don Railton]

Hi Morkel

Lots to love about this... Nice balance between the lighter pastels in the sky and the darker foreground. lots of detail in the FG, even a few animals I see.. I like the skyline detail.. Great Job Morkel.. I agree, big telephotos do provide a neat tool for compressing the foreground into the background which can be very useful in some situations and provide a unique view, but they can also be disappointing in heat haze conditions over long distances..


DON

[Markus Jais]

Great shot. Fantastic colors and light. Wonderful composition. The big tree in the foreground is perfectly placed.

Markus

[Diane Miller]

Lovely! But it could be interesting to experiment with a little more Clarity in the sky.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Nice work Morkel - I love the pinks and blues in this scene!

[Arthur Morris]

Simple and sweet. Moving the van so that the large tree would have been in a clean slot between the smaller trees would have made for a more effective COMP....

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks folks. Artie, was wondering who would pick up on that - certainly in hindsight I should have seen it :e3

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Mork-man, There is an interesting blog post today on Compositional Care that might be apropos :) Read it here: http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2014/08/05/compositional-care-diagonally-speaking-and-a-challenge/

[Neil Burton]

Hindsight is wonderful but then so it this shot, the subtle tones and bags of atmos.