I've been working through my Canada+London pics slowly. Two more from the trip... Comments and crit welcome. Prop - 26mm @ f4.5, for 0.033 s (1/30) ISO 1600 Mountain Hut (HDR) - 53mm @ f14.0, for ISO 100
I'm starting to see it more and more in HDR pics generated by photo matrix. It seem that you've upped the HDR strength slider a little too much and given the mountain a halo which is really quite distracting. I'd have also photoshopped the top corners in if they were missing as it's not too hard to clone cloud. Other than those niglies if you could fix those I think it would be a really stunning photo. Number 1 is nice but I'd like to see it in colour too.
1st one: not enough detail. The negative space just doesn't work here IMHO. 2nd one: lower half of the image looks great, but the sky doesn't. The halo is distracting, but I think the worst thing about it is that the sky looks 'dirty'. You'd expect air like that to be pristine and clear- so a nice crystal blue colour would be better suited. Suggested fix: Open this HDR in photoshop, then create a new layer and add one of your individual shots where the sky was metered right. Use a clipping mask on the layer to hide everything from the mountain down. I know you're pretty good at PS, but thought others might like to know one way to adjust this... (part of the new 'Be Helpful' approach)
I quite like #1. #2 is pretty horrid though... sorry. Youve just hit it far too hard with PP. Ive been there many times, and that photo does it no justice
Some pretty interesting responses In regards to the first shot, the colour image doesn't work that well. As for the second, it's a HDR shot taken from approx 30 different photos and stitched together in a rather dirty manner. It took about 5 hours to get it to the point of being able to open it in Photoshop (no, this isn't an excuses post)... I can perhaps shed a bit of light on the sky in the second shot - yes, the sky actually is 'dirty' in the northern hemisphere, but most of that has more to do with the icky JPG compression, and the ooodles of dust bunnies in the lens. I'll take another stab at the image, but it's a long haul ahead...
Wheee. Thankfully was able to resurrect the HDR shot quite a bit, and didn't have to wait as long for it to re-render. Updated (CTRL+F5 if need to).
I was just about to reply that everyone seems to be hypercritical today. I though the shot was pretty impressive! Only until the last post did I realize that you had changed the image! Maybe a before and after shot to make the above posts more meaningful?
The 2ns shot is an insane scene, i want to live in that hut for a while. Great picture mate, it takes me there and makes me think about what you captured. Thanks. Bubba
Different strokes - plasticbastard, I love #1. I like the negative space. I like the harsh contrasts. I love the angle and perspective. I like the out-of-focus sign center right. i love the woodgrain propeller. Nice work. #2, on the other hand, does nothing for me. Well, not a lot, really. The orange hut contrasts nicely with the green forest. I can't help thinking that the mountain drew you away from a spectacular perspective of the scene, in an effort to capture it in it's entirety.
wow. thats all i can say. the second image is incredible. the little hut, the deep green of the trres, and i like the light on the mountain peak. id love to go there someday i think.
If you didn't mention HDR and fixed the Halo for a sharper transition, would really dig that second photo. Don't think the fact its HDR detracts, its simply awesome. Wonder why it was shot at 53mm though? It looks like a lake at the bottom which would provide a pretty freakin sweet reflection of the mountain, I think scenes like that lend well to wider shots but I guess its hard to compose a scene you haven't seen before...
your second version of the #2 pic is much much better. there's still some halo though but less pronounced. i also prefer the second pic over your first.. but they're both very good photos.
*giggles* That photo was more or less a stitch of about 30+ images (not including all the shots to turn it into HDR), I've got a few more pano's left to process, but the one below is one of the few I've already processed. The particular area these shots were taken made it quite difficult to get everything into the shot, as the mountains are just so damn steep and high. 17mm wasn't wide enough even when shooting portrait. I really have appreciated the feedback so far, and while it may sound like I'm being a bit defensive (I'm not trying to be... honest), these holiday shots were generally a case of "Get the photo when you can" as we didn't have enough time in each place to really explore. I would certainly do a few things differently next time when taking the shot, but I'm somewhat happy with the results given the situation. Lake Louise Snowbound - 61mm @ f10.0, for 0.067 s (1/15) ISO 100
