Sandstone cliffs in moonlight

[mikedewitt]

I made this image on the South shore of Lake Superior (Chequamegon Bay) several weeks ago, a couple days prior to the full moon.

These sandstone cliffs and sea caves are a dominant feature along the South shore in this area. The "good" sea caves have been inaccessible this year, except for a trail on the mainland overlook, due to poor ice conditions.

I processed this image in LR (a first), for grins. There's obvious banding in the sky on this post, which is absent in the optimized tiff file. I'll venture a guess that's due to the low quality jpeg limit?

5DMKII, 17-40mm, f4, 25S, iso200.

Painted the cave with a headlight.

[Robert Amoruso]

Mike,

I find the very dark trees and the large area devoid of detail about the rocks they create disconcerting. If the sky was more fuller in this area, I think that would have been good. With the trees, I am wanting to see more detail or at least a more well defined silhouette of them. I like the look of the rocks and water. On the cave, I would reduce the brightness of the lightest portions.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Mike, this looks like a nice location to photograph at...never been along the south shore...yet. Agree with Robert's comments and suggestions. A slightly lower shooting angle would have prevented the right over-hanging edge of the rock cliff from merging with the trees on the distant shoreline. A very nice scene worth exploring more if you are able to go back easily.

[Andrew Aveley]

Something you may want to consider is the iso setting here , you can push it to at least 800 on that MK 2 and not sweat it. It would help in getting a lot control over the exposure and give you maybe a little more detail say at F6.3. This looks like a cracking location and I love the light painting...maybe a little less will give it a more subtle effect

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hye Mike, creative idea, but I do find the image too dark overall. I brought up the the light using Fill light in ACR balanced the lighting by increasing contrast and added clarity (micro contrast) to bring out more of the details on the rocks. In CS 5 I removed the noise that became visible by lighting up the image and added some saturation to enhance the colors and applied a round of USM. See what you think of it. I think you can do much better on the original image.
I love the moon shadows, it's a very special kind of light!

[mikedewitt]

Thanks everyone for the replies and advice. Since this location is nearby and easily accessible, I'm going to try to shoot it again before the ice goes out for the year...

[Morkel Erasmus]

Some good advice given above, Mike. Robert has summed up my thoughts nicely.