Great Fountain Geyser

[Paul Kammen]

Great Fountain Geyser at sunset - used a polarizing filter in photoshop, not sure if I should do more to darken the sky, or run a detail filter to bring out the smoke more or if it's OK as is?

Canon 7D2
17-55 @ 23mm
1/400
f4.5
ISO 200


Thanks for any comments.

Paul

163845

[Don Railton]

Hi Paul

I like the colours and the scene but i find the sun a little too bright.. I would have sat and waited another 5 minutes until the sun was below the horizon.. Dont forget to add you settings..

DON

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Paul - I added your EXIF data for you. I agree with Don's point about the sun being too harsh. A GND in the field might have helped. I also would like to see more of the reflection and find the rest of the image, other than the sun, a little dark. I probably would have stopped down a bit in the field and sacrificed ss for greater dof. For a landscape with that type of lens you don't need such a high ss. Btw I'm fine with the smoke as is.

TFS,
Rachel

[Adhika Lie]

I am looking for more foreground here. If it were me, I would wait until the sun just right along the horizon and try to capture some sun star with a smaller aperture. I don't see any DOF problem here (at least not at this resolution) but like everyone else, I am hoping for a less garish sun.

[Rachel Hollander]

I am seeing a fall off in sharpness on the lower left. Stopping down would also have perhaps created a sunburst.

[Paul Kammen]

Thanks...I took a lot of shots here. Here's one as the sun is lower.

163870

[Paul Kammen]

And here's one as the sun is a little lower too after sunset...

163871

[Paul Kammen]

Thanks for the comments...here's one final image. I shot it all in RAW, and was at this spot for a while, so my biggest struggles in post are how much to increase or decrease exposure; shadows, which I've been increasing the level on, and using a grad-ND in post or not or how much saturation to do to the sky. This one below has a grad-ND filter applied in post.

163872

[Don Lacy]

Hi Paul, Nice series of image I like the one in pane 7 the best has the right balance of tones and I like the diagonal line in the foreground. As far as post processing it really is up tp you on how you want to present your images but here are a few rules one of them being it is impossible for the fore ground to be brighter the n the sky so you need to watch out for that when using a a grad filter in post. I think you come closs to breaking that rule with the image in pane 8

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Paul...I too prefer the image posted in Pane #7..the previous images with the sun at the horizon would have worked better if you used a Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter to hold back the sun.

[Michael Thompson]

I like #7 best too, it has nicest colors and more detail in the fore ground