Illinois River Valley - Early Fall.

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

I took this image of the Illinois River Valley a couple of evenings ago of the early color change. I am not a landscape photographer so I am looking for help of what I might have done to improve the image. It was a beautiful fall day the contrast between the shade of the trees in the foreground and the river in the distance were nearly 7 stops different. I took 6 images with about a stop between each exposure and merged the images using Photomatix, then may some slight changes in PS. The shooting info was as follows: Nikon D800E, Nikon 24-70mm at 48mm, ISO-100, f/20. ANy help will certainly be welcomed.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Wheeler, I think you have done well with what you have here in terms of exposure, but unfortunately the composition is not doing it for me. This mostly due to little interest in the sky and not much really going on in the foreground either. Perhaps if there were some interesting cloud formations in the sky or a more interesting tree in the foreground it would work better. What I may have tried in this situation would have been to use a longer lens and try to extract a pleasing selection of autumn trees or even use the long lens and experiment with a panoramic view.

Looking forward to seeing more of your photos over here in the Landscapes forum and when you have time try to look through some of the previous threads as you will find lots of helpful advice in them as well. Please do remember to drop a note or two on the threads when you visit them though.

Cheers!

[Hazel Grant]

I am impressed that you put so much thought into the exposure elements to get this. I see where Andrew is going with it as a pleasing comp though. I did a crop to bring the focus more to the river/leaves part. You may or may not like it. just another viewpoint. And I'm a bit jealous that you have colorful leaves to capture. Ours in southern illinois are being so stubborn!

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Wheeler,

I have to agree with Andrew a bit. I see that you have some clouds in the sky, if you can bring them more out with contrast or a graduate filter would be very nice. As well the sky at the horizon has a really nice color, a bit more saturation on that might give the image a boost.

Have a great day

Ciao
Anette

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice scene and lovely fall colours here Wheeler.
I agree with Andrew and very much like the crop Hazel has presented.
The colours and luminosity overall look a bit "botched" to me - a look that often accompanies automated HDR software like Photomatix...

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Wheeler, I think Hazel's crop adds a lot to the image.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hazel that is a lovely crop and much like what I was thinking on my pano suggestion.

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[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Thanks all for your thoughts, I especially like Hazels crop and will give it a try.