Lake Travers at Dawn

[Andrew McLachlan]

155674

In early August I had a special invitation to spend several days at the Algonquin Radio Observatory in a remote section of Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park. This image was created early one morning before sunrise from the shoreline of Lake Travers.

Nikon D800
Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 18mm
ISO 100
f16 @ 8 seconds
Singh Ray 3-stop Reverse Grad Filter

Look forward to comments.

[Don Railton]

Hi Andrew

Beautiful moment captured in the blue hour.. I like the fog lifting off the water. I find the Fg center a little bright for me. I wondered if you have thought about pulling back that back with a luminosity mask..? I Think there is a generalisation that reflections on water are usually ~ 1 stop darker than the sky due to loss of light into the water.. In this they look about the same... It's a very tranquil scene, well done.

Don

[Don Lacy]

I really like how the lily pads lead the viewer into the scene, I als agree with Don on the bright sky.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andrew - very nice scene and I like the colors. Good suggestion by Don. Is there a slight distortion at the waterline/horizon?

TFS,
Rachel

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks for the comments folks...Don R I do agree on the brightness of the reflections and did tone it down somewhat but it seems all are in agreement that it needs a little further toning down...will do :) Rachel, I will take another look but the 18mm does have some slight distortion to it at the 18mm end.

[Diane Miller]

I love this! The horizon isn't so much distorted as tilted.

Did you shoot any other compositions? The water lilies are such a strong element, I'd willingly sacrifice some of the sky to see more of them at the bottom. I could see a composite vertical "pano" that gave a squarish crop.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks Diane, I like your idea but unfortunately there were no more lilies to include along the bottom edge.