OK landscape folks, let me have it

[Jim Poor]

Landscape photography is something I've always wanted to do, but never really have been very good at.

I move the color temp to 6500 in LR during conversion, cropped and that's it.

I like that there appears to be a ray shining down on the bird.
I don't like that I think I have tooooooo much dark area in the frame.

What else?

Thanks


Camera Make: NIKON CORPORATION

Camera Model: NIKON D3

Image Date: 2008:03:20 06:47:35

Flash Used: No

Focal Length: 200.0mm (35mm equivalent: 200mm)

Exposure Time: 0.0001 s (1/8000)

Aperture: f/2.8

ISO equiv: 200

Exposure Bias: -1.50

White Balance: Auto

Metering Mode: Matrix

Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto)

Comment: (C)JIM_POOR

[Jim Poor]

Here is the original Horizontal frame without the crop. WAY too much dark I'm sure.

[Robert Amoruso]

Hi Jim,

Best part is that ray of light. I agree with your self-critique - too much dark. Also the FG is OOF. The aperture of f/2.8 is the killer. I would rarely make a landscape image like this w/o going to F16, F22, etc. You need the depth of field.

I would crop just for the sun, bird and ray and leave a line of trees as the compositional anchor along the bottom edge. Most likely this would be a horizontal crop. A 400mm lens would probably have been a good choice here as you could have went for the sun, bird and ray.

Looking to see more in the near future. Thanks for joining us here.

[Jim Poor]

Thanks Robert. I see what you mean. Maybe about the upper right 1/4 of the original. Probably too much of a crop, but I probably could have done that in camera with a quick lens switch. Live and learn . . .

[Paul Marcellini]

For this image I would crop above that oof dark stuff in the water. Careful stopping down too much as it can cause diffraction, loss of sharpness.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Jim,
Welcome to the landscape forum!
I think this is what Robert meant (except in Vert)........but I couldn't save the bird.........but it would have been larger in frame with the 400mm. If you do silhouettes.........especially birds and such......... f22 isn't necessary always especially since the big lenses tend to not do well there!...............but otherwise.......like Robert said.........landscapers live in the other side of the f stop world........16 or higher!
Roman

[Jim Poor]

Thanks Roman. I'll have to dig out my BH-55 and try some stopping down.

You mean f-stops go higher than 4? ;)

[Robert Amoruso]

I was thinking small f/stops with wide angles and my Canon TS lenses not an intermediate telephoto. For my 70-200mm I normally use f/11 with good results. When I use an intermediate tele for a landscape, I will frame it such that from near to far I am in focus at the f/stop used.

I did not qualify my earlier response well and did not speak to the lens that Jim used - thanks for the correction Roman and Paul.

This is what I had in mind on the crop.

[Ian McHenry]

Hi Jim
What I find as my most common landscape problem is OF foregrounds but mostly they can be cropped out except when branch framed where if you want to keep the frame need to focus on branches.
Here is a rough edit with OF FG cloned out and auto smart fix and minimum sharpen with PSE 5.
Ian Mc

[Jim Poor]

Wow. Thanks again everyone. I like the shimmering water, but don't think it could have been retained without also including the OOF dark stuff on the left. One of these days, I'll have to go out specifically for landscapes instead of seeing them as an aside while out after critters.