The Bridge At Tomar Portugal

[David Cowling]

On holiday in Portugal last week and decided to leave the 7D mk2 and lenses at home. I have just bought a Panasonic LX 100 as a lightweight carry round camera and thought I would put it through it's paces to see how it compared to the big beasts. This is an early morning shot with a long exposure using a 10 stop ND filter. Critique and comments very welcome.

Panasonic LX100. Lens at 24mm . B&W 10 stop ND filter. Tripod

13 sec @ f8. ISO 200

[David Cowling]

The image looks a little too bright. I have darkened it a little.155534

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi David - I actually prefer the op to the rp. I like the bridge as a leading line but find my eye drawn to the pole on the left I might have shifted my comp to the right a little and avoided having the pole in the image. Alternatively I would have included a bit more at the bottom to include the whole support there. So overall were you happy with your decision to leave the DSLR at home?

TFS,
Rachel

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi David...I agree with Rachel's critique for this image...also I find the cyan colours in the water a bit strong...I would use Selective Color and reduce the blacks on the cyan channel to reduce the saturated look of the cyan colours.

[Don Railton]

Hi David, I would be quite happy with the OP exposure wise.. Not so sure about the sharpness tho although i dont want to blame your gear on that... I dont know that camera from a bar of soap.. I oto find the pole on the bridge a bit of a distraction and it breaks up my eye flow around the image.. I keep ending up on that black blob top of pole... If you added a vinyette I would remove that, maybe that was the camera??

DON

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Lovely shot with nice leading lines David! I agree about preferring the OP. Don has a good point about the dark top of pole - maybe dodge that a little to expose more detail from it and so it does not pull the eye away from the beautiful lines & scenery?

[David Cowling]

Thanks to everyone for your very helpful comments. Rachel, completely agree about the pole, if I could have taken the picture from anywhere else I would have avoided it but I was constrained by a road to my left and buildings to my right, I have taken it out in a re-post. Yes I was happy to leave the DSLR at home, I took many more images of street scenes, people and interiors than I would have felt comfortable with using a more intrusive camera. Andrew, agree about the over saturated cyans but don't know how to do the selective color bit. There is always a trade off when using a 10 stop ND as it introduces a bit of a colour cast and trying to neutralise that leads to other colour problems which I why I usually convert to mono. Don, I think that the lack of sharpness is due to me not sharpening the image after saving for web. The vignette is probably due to the fact that I had to use a step up ring to add the filter, the lens thread is 43mm and the filter I used is 58mm. Tobie, I have eliminated the offending pole.

Please feel free to comment on the RP.155552

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Yep, the last version works for me! :5

[Rachel Hollander]

Last rp is best.

[Don Lacy]

The last post is a very nice image but I do think you over sharpen it a tad.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Lovely scene - the photo just doesn't look sharp enough? Camera shake?