Le Kubu Island

[Pierre Smith]

Le Kubu Island in Botswana - July, late afternoon

F16
1/100
ISO 250

Nikon D3s with 24-70mm lens

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice view of this iconic place, Pierre.
I felt the simplicity and the strong tones leans it to an experiment in B&W...you'll see some artifacting here as it needs to be done from the high res file, but I played with a red filter to darken the sky.
What do you think?

[Pierre Smith]

Hi Morkel.
Long time no see, how are you? Must make an appontment for Mankwe again.
Think you are right with the B&W. Will play around with the original image.
Thanks

[Jerry van Dijk]

Both versions look good! BW makes it something special.

[Chris Korman]

When I first loaded the thread and saw the image, I thought "oh nice, but would look better as a B&W" then I scrolled down to pane 2 and 3 and it seems like this is what others have already stated. Personally, I feel that you should strive to make the B&W bring out a lot of tones in the foreground rocks b/c as it is, they are kind of flat, and there is some "crunched" dark tones.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Personally, I feel that you should strive to make the B&W bring out a lot of tones in the foreground rocks b/c as it is, they are kind of flat, and there is some "crunched" dark tones.

I agree Chris...that's why I stated that it was a quick job just to show the potential as it were. Ideally I would work this in multiple layers, using different filters for the sky and FG and doing a bit more tweaking to bring out the tones and textures upfront.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Ideally I would work this in multiple layers, using different filters for the sky and FG and doing a bit more tweaking to bring out the tones and textures upfront.

(Pseudo) HDR might do the trick as well. If you shot in RAW, you can make a range of exposures from the same image and blend them to a HDR image using PS or Photomatix. It will probably bring out loads of details in the FG rocks. You could even go a little 'grungy', I think the Boabab trees have a surreal quality in themselves (at least to me as a European used to 'standard' trees ).

[Rachel Hollander]

Pierre - good suggestions for b&w. Looking forward to seeing your take on it.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andrew Aveley]

Ditto on the BW work here :) A unique landscape I am sure to attempt in 2012 :) If there were maybe a few clouds in the scene , colour may have more impact :)

[Chris Korman]

I agree Chris...that's why I stated that it was a quick job just to show the potential as it were. Ideally I would work this in multiple layers, using different filters for the sky and FG and doing a bit more tweaking to bring out the tones and textures upfront.

Hi Morkel, I should have been a little more clear, I was meaning for the "you" to be the author in pane#1, for him to develop out an increased tonal range.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Pierre, these are cool looking trees. I vote for the B&W version. I think it has more impact than the color version.

[Robert Amoruso]

Sorry it took me so long to catch up here.

I would agree with the above suggestions.