4dogsken Loc: NE Ohio

D7000
Sigma 10-20, 4-5.6
f/16
ISO-100
15mm
1/3, 1.5, 6 sec.
Photomatix,pse 7

drhanson Loc: Coos Bay, Oregon

Like this shot, colors and cloud formations is great, I would like to see what a larger verion looks like,IMO as small as it is it just looks a little flat.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

I'm not seeing much increase in dynamic range....

4dogsken Loc: NE Ohio

Thanks drhanson. Try this. Any tips and pointers appreciated.

4dogsken Loc: NE Ohio

More of an experiment in low light detail capture with HDR. Will compare this to the middle bracket next time I acesss my files. Thanks for the feedback.

conkerwood

Like LoneRangeFinder I also am not sure how much dynamic range has been gained so I would have to see the three shots to be sure. So I will leave the HDR aspect of the pic for now. Firstly I love the colours. The beautiful rich tones have real impact but, by comparison, the sea is relatively evenly toned and a little featureless. I think it might have been effective to have brought out a little more detail in the sea to counteract the flatness that has already been mentioned. The leading lines of the clouds are very effective in taking your eyes to the buildings in the distance but for me the buildings are too small to be effective when compared to the vastness of the sea and sky. I had a look at cropping the top and left. To my eye, cropping to enlarge the relative size of the buildings works very well, but thats an artistic decision for you to make. There is some distortion going on. The right third of the waterline appears to be curved down which may in part be an optical illusion if the shoreline is curved towards us. However, if you go to 100% and check the verticals of the buildings then you can see that they are off at various places, the buildings on the left are leaning to the right and the buildings on the right are leaning left. This suggests that at least some of the curvature of the waterline could be lens distortion. The only other comment is a question to do with the weird cloud formation on the middle right, above the square building. It runs across the other cloud structure and looks quite unnatural but I'm guessing it could be a con trail from a plane. It might be worthwhile checking to see if was on the originals and is not some strange processing artifact. But overall its an interesting pic which has a lot going for it. But I do wonder if the HDR processing could have been tweeked to bring out more detail in the shadows.

I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing more of your pics.

Peter

drhanson Loc: Coos Bay, Oregon

After seeing the larger version and reading what Peter had to say, I do think a crop would be in order, I also did some work on this, I put it through Photomatix again and still was not able to get much detail out of it, so I tried using Topaz Detail 3 and by using the blurring tool I was able to bring out some detail, this tells me that there is a focus problem. Was this shot handheld or did you use a tripod, either way I do believe it be a focus problem with the detail.

4dogsken Loc: NE Ohio

Hey Peter. Checked the previous bracket sets and the anomaly is moving with the clouds. Probably plane caused. The shoreline does curve down but there is definite distortion which will get fixed better once my grasp of ps increases. The cityscape was meant to be incidental to show it's insignificance in the overall scheme of things. Been working with a 10-stop ND all summer so it seemed a bit overly choppy. Guess it's all relative,eh? Just noticed some sensor dirt left of the upper left sweet spot. Internet access sporadic. Will try to post all 3 brackets. (Got plenty of cityscapes where the city IS the focus. Will post down the road.) Thank you kindly for all the feedback.

4dogsken Loc: NE Ohio

Hey dr. Used a tripod & 5 sec. delay. Don't know how much sharper those flagpoles and lighting rods on the buildings at the edge of the frame can get. Plus, at 1.5 and 6 sec., anything moving will seem out of focus. I'll try and post all three shots so you can play with them next chance I get to transfer files. Thanks.