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Melissa Groo
10-04-2010, 06:07 AM
Canon 5d Mark II
Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L
ISO 100
1/350 sec
f/6.7
Handheld

Taken at Cape St Mary's, Newfoundland, last month.

Probably should have stopped down here (but I was so excited as I approached I couldn't think straight!). Did slight levels and curves adjustment and some sharpening in CS4. Eager to know how I could improve this. Thank you in advance.

Dave Mills
10-04-2010, 11:29 AM
Hi Melissa, I think this is an interesting image due to the mass of birds on an interesting rock formation. I almost thought this was a B&W but see a little bit of color tint. The image would work well as a B&W.
I like the fact I can see detail in the shadows along with the contrast of the flying birds against the dark backround.
I see you shot this at F6.7 which is a very low Fstop for a landscape. It looks fairly sharp due to you shooting a scene far away. If you shot a scene with any foreground material it would probably not be sharp throughout.
I also highly recommend the use of a tripod which will enable you to shoot landscapes at high fstops and slow ss....

Melissa Groo
10-04-2010, 03:33 PM
That's a great idea to do it in black and white, Dave! I will try that and if I think it's interesting enough to share I'll repost it within this thread.
I know, as my little write up at beginning admits, I certainly should have moved to a higher fstop. But on this trip was making my first forays into landscape photography, and I did learn a lot. And am continuing to learn, thanks to forums lke this one.

Robert Amoruso
10-04-2010, 07:17 PM
Hi Melissa,

Dave brought up some great points. The first thing I noticed when viewing this image was the vertical flow of the crags in the rocks. This says vertical format to me. For this to work better as a horizontal, I would have like to see more of the cliff protruding into the image from the left; it is a diagonal which is strong compositional and would have helped to balance the right side of the image better with the much larger rock face.

I agree that a smaller f/stop is normally a good way to go with a landscape. It is not as big a deal if the subject is a good distance from you and the FG and BG are in the same plane as is the case here. As you have flying birds in the image, a slow shutter speed is not good as they will be blurred unless that is the affect you are striving for in which case experiment with different speeds.

Thanks for posting and looking forward to seeing more of your work here in Landscape.

Roman Kurywczak
10-10-2010, 12:37 PM
Hey Melissa,
I can see why you were excited! I'm with Robert on this one comp wise. In the repost.....I show where this would be stronger.....mostly because of the lines and the way the Gannets stand out against the dark BG. A bit more roo up top....which the vert may have allowed.....would take this up a few notches! Distance saved you here.....as they were far away so the faster SS did a nice job of freezing the gannets in the shadow area and really make them stand out!

Melissa Groo
10-11-2010, 06:42 PM
Roman, thanks so very much for your thoughts on this. I am going to try it as you suggest. I really appreciate it!