Stumped by the beauty of the Kalahari

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi everyone...

During our recent trip to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, we decided one morning to stay in bed a while longer and not drive out at sunrise to look for game. Well, at least, the others in our party (including my wife) laid in. I was up looking for landscape shots around our camp. :)

I created this image using auto-exposure bracketing and doing a manual gradient mask blend in CS3. I have many images in this sunrise sequence, all showing different tones, clouds and contrasts. This just happens to be the first one I processed. I spent quite a bit of time on it and am happy with the result.

As I am quite new to DSLR photography in general (only bought my first DSLR in January 2009) and especially to landscape composing and shooting, I would very much like your inputs to this shot, and how to improve it (and even how to compose should the opportunity arise again).

I wanted to share with the viewer the long golden grass, signature camelthorn trees and superb light and skies of the Kalahari. I used this fallen tree stump as FG anchor and leading line, and f22 to flare the rising sun.

Techs:
Canon 1000D with 18-55mm IS @ 18mm
f22 @ ISO-100 @ AEB (-1,0,1)

[Kobus Tollig]

Great shot and comp here for me well done. Only nit for me here is the slight halos around the trees. Miss you bud.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks bud! I can't see the halos on the TIFF so I assume it crept in during resizing and sharpening :)
miss you too - but I'm only a phone call away ;) will give you a ring during the week...

[Hazel Grant]

Fine capture! I like the sun spot and it's rays. Just a tiny thing....I would try to remove that one grass blade that seems to be reaching for the sun in front of the log. I can't see the halo either, but guess my monitor is not catching it.

[Harold Davis]

love the starburst and the processing seems quite good here. two things jump out at me. if you had moved the camera higher, you could have separated the tree on the horizon line from intersecting with the foreground limb. the last one, i dont think you could do anything about without using a wider lens. that is the foreground limb that exits the frame at the horizon line. it bothers me a little. not the main part of the limb, but the small one jutting forward.

your HDR is solid. cant tell at all here and that makes it more special in this scene. well done!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Morkel,
Very good advice given above as to the tree hitting the horizon and the other 2 branches (nice job H). As also mentioned above I do see a slight halo also but an easy fix too. I like the way you used the stump to lead us to the sun and the way the trees on the right balance the image overall. Super sky.....and I too would prefer this w/o the smaller branch touching the edge of frame but it isn't a deal breaker.
Nice job with the HDR work and just smoooth the halos and you have a very nice image!

[Lance Warley]

Great job, Morkel.

I love the tree as the FG anchor and leading line. I also like your processing, because the photo looks completely natural. Nothing is overdone. I don't see any halos.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Roman, Lance, Harold & Hazel for the feedback!

@ Roman - any suggestions on how to remove halos like this? use one of the original exposures and paint through as a mask? I now wish I had set the tripod somewhat higher, but doing this shoot made me realise that I'm gonna have to purchase that 10-20mm Sigma f3.5 I've been looking at :)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Morkel,
You sometimes get halos if you didn't blur the layers masks enough. I have also seen it in a few HDR's and Robert mentioned something about the smoothing??? setting. Hope he chimes in on that.
As is......if you blow it up 400% and go back in and carefully clone/patch......even a smaller levels layer to darken the halo area......all viable although not ideal fixes.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Roman. this was actually blended with gradient masks in CS3 and I didn't even use Photomatix :)
when using CS3, how should I blur the layer masks?

[Hilary Hann]

Lovely image. I couldn't see the halo until my son pointed it out. Agree with the comments about separating the branch from the horizon but I don't have the tech knowledge that the others have to make any other suggestions. Beautiful landscape.

[Robert Amoruso]

Morkel,

Nice work. Harold's suggestions are exactly what I would suggest too. I like how you combined the exposures. Your time spent paid off well.