Quabbin Trail

[Bee Emily]

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1/640
40mm
f4
iso 400
This was taken at Quabbin Park Reservoir in Central Massachusetts on a wonderful fall day in October. It was about 1 pm.

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[Chris Starbuck]

Bee,
What a beautiful scene! You've really captured the glow of the sunlight through the leaves. Could use a bit of sharpening. I like the placement of the tree at the left edge - it makes a good visual stop. I think if you cropped in from the right to create a similar stop there with the right-most tree it would strengthen an already nice composition.

[Bee Emily]

Chris,
I took your advice about the sharpening and right hand tree. What do you think?

[Bee Emily]

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[Robert Amoruso]

Bee,

I like the tightening of the crop in the repost. Actually, I saw this earlier today and thought that a crop like your repost was needed. I just seat down to moderate and downloaded you image and then came back to the end of the thread and viola, you beat me too it. Great work. The recrop works because you now have the left and right trees framing the image. The eye starts at the left, goes right and then once in the image can travel back and forth as the trees recede into the BG.

I would suggest a few things to consider. That time in the early afternoon is difficult with the strong light. You did good here, but reds and yellows are oversaturated and blown in at least one channel. I reposted a version which used a reverse s-curve (here for more info http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20434). I also tweaked done saturation of the red and yellows primarily since they ramped up when I brought the image into Photoshop.

Short of using High Dynamic Range Imaging, your best bet is to visit either early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

I would suggest using a tripod and a smaller aperture. Your image is all about depth and you want to accentuate that by maintaining as much DOF as possible. I sharpened the repost on a BG copy 4 times using USM. One at 175/0.3/0 and three times at 125/.2/0.

[Bee Emily]

Robert,
Thanks for taking the time to work on my image. I like how the reds and yellows are warmer instead of so..............
Thanks for the details on how you worked on the image. I will try them in the future.

[Bill Randall]

I am a transplant to the Southwest from Mass. Your image really made me homesick for New England. I know how that forest smells and sounds. Great capture and I think the repost eliminated the branch on the right edge that I found a bit troublesome, but the shot was so good that even before the crop it was outstanding. Good work. And thanks for a bit of my past.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Bee,
While it is bright.........you did well minimizing the effects with the heavy canopy. A highlight recovery would further help.

Just another option for you to explore in the future.........scroll down on your re-post........until the second horizontal branch is at the top of the page (browser crop).....cutting off about 1/5 from the top horizontally. This gives you the nice leading line of the path back and still maintain a 2 to 3 ratio aprroximately........so doing that comp in camera..........would have been possible. I always recommend that when you find a scene that catches your eye........compose it at many different focal lengths and from as many different angles as possible. On an overcast or rainy day.........this scene, would have been amazing!
Hope you get to explore it again.

[Chris Starbuck]

Chris,
I took your advice about the sharpening and right hand tree. What do you think?
Exactly what I had in mind. Robert and Roman have pointed out more helpful things, and good things to keep in mind for the future.

[Dennis "Curly" Buchner]

Bee what a nice image and it is so great that Roman and Robert are so helpful to make our images better