Sorry Morkel, couldn't resist on the title after seeing yours. I was fortunate enough to be in the Galapagos when a volcano on Fernandina erupted. We detoured to see it and were in the pangas near where the lava hit the water just before dusk. Unfortunately, I had to use my back-up camera after my 50D conked out the day before.
Canon Rebel XT
100-400 @ 135mm
1/250
f7.1
ISO 800
HH from a very bouncy panga. Luminosity mask, levels, curves, selective color adjustments and sharpened in CS5.
Rachel, that would have been an awesome sight indeed and at least you had a back up camera so were able to record it. Quality has suffered, but still a good capture.
No worries, Rachel .
I always like seeing lava flowing into the ocean. You managed to get a "keeper" of the event with your backup camera and I think you did well given the apparent lighting conditions and time of day. There's a bit of a graininess to the finer detail which might be worth a second look when processing...
I like how this is composed. I do not know what the scene looked like to the right but I have a feeling panning to the right and moving the lava flow to the left of the image would better balance the lava with the black rock and show more of the interesting layering of the interesting rocks and steam in the upper third of the image.
Thanks Robert, I don't remember what it looked like to the right. There were 3 places relatively close where the lava was hitting the water and all I remember is trying to isolate one. Of course what they looked like and how much glow there was kept changing.