After Sunset on Lake Superior

[Andrew McLachlan]

During my September trip to Lake Superior Provincial Park I spent a few nights at Katherine Cove as it is often a good location for sunset imagery. On this particular night there was not much interest in the sky for nice sunset photos, so I waited until the sun had set and then tried a few long exposures, concentrating on the foreground details.

Nikon D800
Nikon 18-35mm Lens (the new version)
ISO 800
f16 @ 15 seconds
Bubble-level
Mirror-up
Tripod
Cable Release
No filters used

Look forward to comments

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andrew - the long exposure worked well to smooth the water. I like the rocks as a leading line but wonder if softening them slightly might give a better feel.

TFS,
Rachel

[Don Nelson]

I like the effect on the water, but I am not fond of trees in the upper left corner that are growing at a severe angle.
Also, based upon the horizon, a slight -0.3 degree rotation might be useful.

[dankearl]

I like the the water and the leading rocks a lot.
You we're using a lower focus sensor I assume, giving you the wide angle distortion?
I do it a lot and am learning how to correct it.
Don Nelson and Diane Miller give good advice on it.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andrew, I really like the way the rock leads the eye. Could you double process for the FG rock to get a bit more depth & detail out of it?

Nice to see you posting again Andrew.

TFS
Steve

[Diane Miller]

Dramatic use of wide angle!

The focus sensor in use (where the the plane of focus is set) isn't what's causing the distortion -- it's because the camera is aimed down. (Aim it up and you get the opposite, with the trees leaning in.) If you can go wide enough to allow you to keep the horizontal axis level and still frame the scene you want, and crop off the unwanted extra sky, you would not have the distortion.

Using a T/S lens is the best answer -- you can aim down and shift the lens to remove the distortion. And you could also tilt it to make the plane of focus lie along the plane of the water instead of being parallel to the sensor, giving greater DOF. The price is that these lenses are manual focus, but your focus sensors will still respond to where the focus is.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks folks for the comments...much appreciated! Yep a tilt-shift lens would definitely be the way to go to eliminate the leaning trees. Steve, I will give your thought a try and see what I can do...with rocky scenes like this I do add some detail extractor to the rocks....maybe could use a little extra.

[Chris Ober]

I didnt' notice the leaning treas at first. Nice lines with the rocks and good detail there. I like it. I ran it through PT Lens and it didn't seem to help much (unless I used the wrong settings)

[Steve Kaluski]

like this I do add some detail extractor to the rocks....maybe could use a little extra.

Not my favourite bit of software and now you mention it, it does have that look & feel. I just wondered if you had two images, one where you had it without a slow SS and combined the two, whether or not that might have helped???

Then using a Channels/Level/Curves adjustment together in one layer to get the detail & tone, although it works best as two layers, one for Blacks the other for the Whites, but no deal breaker.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Much thanks Steve...I don't have an image without the slower shutter speed, but I will experiment with your double-processing suggestion in a day or two and see what I can come up with