Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
When we headed out a couple of weeks ago to see friends in Kansas, we were in one of our spells of coastal fog so we departed IFR (on instruments). The tops of the stratus are usually at about 1000-1500 ft so there is often a nice view as we break out. This time was not a disappointment. (Other things were, though. I had hoped to find clear weather, dark skies and a flat horizon to shoot a pano of the rising Milky Way, but smoke from the fires in Alberta shot that down.)
Specific Feedback
All comments welcome! I’m not delighted with the crop but I’ve been playing with it too long. I was trying to show some detail in the FG. There is more canvas to the left but the detail there is smaller and goes on for a ways until it ends, making a long pano. Shooting through plexi limits sharpness and I need the small aperture for decent corners – although that could be sacrificed with a scene like this – if I had had the presence of mind to do it.
Technical Details
Contrast brought up in LR, then more in PS with Nik Tonal Contrast. Topaz Denoise.
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Diane, You must be a pilot, eh? Sounds like fun. The interest in this image is the fog and trees breaking above the clouds. The sky in the background does not add anything to the image, so I cropped it out, lowered the noise in Topaz Photo AI and lowered the contrast on just the fog area trying to separate the fog from the clouds some. I’m not sure this did much. Hope this helps some.
Thanks for looking and providing a reaction, @Larry_Greenbaum. For my taste, your crop places more visual weight than I like near the top edge, although I’m by no means stuck with the “rule” of thirds. One feature I tried to bring out with my crop was the sharp line at the top of the marine layer, but I probably should have tried to emphasize it more. There seems to be a light halo above that – I need to see if it is in the raw file or an artifact of processing. (I doubt the latter but don’t know for sure.)
I am a pilot (commercial, multi-engine and commercial glider) but never worked at it and haven’t had time to stay current in a long time. Too many other things to do, and my husband is always ready to go anywhere on two minutes notice. The hangars are his unkempt man-cave and I hate changing oil.
Ha here’s an image whose composition is my daily diet, and I’m thinking to myself: “Sky and sea, not worlds apart really” Then I read: “Marine layer” ah… please explain further… I’d like to hear! 
It’s lovely to look at the trees peeking out through the clouds, and they are nicely sharp. I think @Larry_Greenbaum further denoising worked great. Clouds and fog can be really smooth so no problem! I like his crop, too, but perhaps just a little more sky? Tough one that!
I see that you used a very fast shutter speed. Is that because of the speed of the plane? It may be worthwhile trying to see what a wider aperture/lower ISO might yield, as clouds needn’t be in sharp focus?
Finally, the glow looks natural to me, and provide a nice variation in luminosity.
Thanks, @LauraEmerson! The marine layer is due to cooler air over the Pacific Ocean (about 20 miles to the right in this picture). It occurs when there is not a lot of disruption by wind, or when a high pressure dome forms over the central west coast. The layer of cooler air is denser than the warmer air above so settles into a nice layer, contained west of the coastal hills that extend to about 30-40 miles inland. If the humidity is high enough, low stratus fog condenses. This morning the fog extended as far north and south as we could see, bounded by the hills to the east. Normally the air cools as altitude increases. You can feel the increasing warmth of that temperature inversion as you climb, even in a closed-cockpit plane.
The fast SS probably wasn’t needed here but the settings are sort of a default for aerial shooting as bumps always seem to occur just as I press the shutter, and the smaller aperture helps to get sharper corners – which also wouldn’t be a factor here but might be 17 seconds later…
I should do another round of denoise, as Tonal Contrast brought it back up a little.
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Thanks for the info, @Diane_Miller. It’s fascinating! So the cooler air somehow slips under the warmer air and stays there when conditions are very calm? Is the top of the marine the sharp line in the sky? I thought this was the horizon?
Huh what about 17 seconds later? Sorry if I missed something 
@LauraEmerson, the distant horizon is actually the top of the fog, but its top is at the top of the cooler air of the marine layer. That’s a west coast thing – from central California north the Pacific is around 50-60 degrees (a little warmer around Los Angeles and south) due to currents from the arctic. Surfers wear wet suits here.
The 17 seconds was a clumsy reference to how fast scenery (and air turbulence) changes shooting from the plane. It’s a shoot first and ask questions later sort of thing.
