First of 3 shots of Skyline Bridge at sunrise

[allanrube]

Here is a shot I took last month while at Ft. Desoto. I liked watching the sun rise at this spot. Most days were foggy or cloudy but a few worked well imho. I like the reflection.

D3X; 70-200 VR at 70 mm - 1/12 - f/13 - iso 100

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[Jay Gould]

Hey Allan, while I really like it, I am working on liking it! :Whoa!:

The overall image really grabs me; however, is a bit grungy/gritty. Did you intend that result?

I like the the triangles created by the two uprights.

The foreground water is wonderful; the midground water is neither smooth nor rough - just gritty.

I think you should remove the black spot at the top center of the frame and the spot/dust spot below and to the right of the black spot. Oops, there is also a dust spot along the top edge of the frame a bit in from the RHS.

As I keep looking I am seeing more dust spots over the two pyramids and some in the water. You really have to view the image at 100% to find all of the dust spots. CS5 content-aware does such a wonderful job making them disappear.

I hope the sensor has been cleaned since this was shot.

I think I would make an attempt to blur the midground water to remove the grit.

Looking forward to the next one.

[allanrube]

Jay, I am at a motel using my laptop a month after shooting this image. I forgot a lot in a month. One thing was that my sensor was filthy and I did get it clean. I look forward to getting home and looking at the images on my large monitor. I do have work to do on these.

[Robert Amoruso]

Allan,

I am going to disagree with Jay - I like the middle ground water look. IT helps to layer the image and add a different dynamic to it. Blurring this area would look unnatural if details remained in the FG

My preferable means to shoot something like this is with ND and GND filters and get a long shutter speed to turn the water into a mass of color. And if the clouds were moving fast, I would merge two images of the fast and slow speed images so that the clouds had good definition as you have here.

[Don Railton]

Hi Allan

A beautiful scene nicely captured but I agree that a bit more colour would make this image sooo much better. I prefer the earlier image with the egret but look forward to the next..

DON

[Angelika Schauf]

Great comp and nice reflection.

[dankearl]

I think the scene, the colors and the exposure is very nice.
I agree with Jay on the IQ though, iso 100 should look a lot smoother than this.

[allanrube]

Here is my repost. Besides cleaning up dust spots, I added a bit of contrast and used noise reduction. I left the water the way it was.

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[Grady Weed]

I have been to this spot many times Allan, having lived in Florida for over 20 years, I agree with Robert on this one. I think Jay has a valid point however. I think he sees the small protusions in the right middle side and the areas just under the bridge as the eye catching culprits. A longer shutter speed would have smoothed and blurred the water into a mass of color as he points out. This a very nice spot for what you intended it for.

[Jay Gould]

The RP rocks; though, I still would have smoothed the water with a longer exposure. Well done.

[Grady Weed]

Big improvement on the re-post!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Allan, nice work on the repost. I do like the idea of having a long exposure to blur the water. I would evict the two black lines in the water that Grady mentions. They look like the tops of the bridge, but since we can't see the whole bridge reflecting I too find them to be distracting. Overall, nice work!

[allanrube]

Thanks for your post Andrew. I was unclear what protrusions Grady mentioned until you said reflections from the bridge. I will look at it without them. I kind of like them, but maybe it is a case where the photographer likes him because he understood where they were coming from while viewers do see it just as a distraction.

[Don Railton]

I find the repost a lot stronger Allan

DON

[Grady Weed]

Actually I was refering to the spots above Allans signature on the right side. The clump of protrusions are not so bad as to worry too much over however.

[Morkel Erasmus]

the repost rocks both in terms of IQ and colour
I would love to see this with a smoother water surface as per Robert's suggestions.