I’ve been getting out as much as I can to take advantage of the fall colors while they last. I went to a couple of near by parks yesterday to see what fall compositions I could find. I’ve been pushing myself lately to search for compositions that I might have passed by before. I found this assortment of leaves in the stream that I thought made a nice pattern with varied fall colors. This was taken at Taughannock Falls.
Specific Feedback Requested
I liked how the leaves floating on top of the water were mostly brightly colored and the leaves that had dropped to the bottom of the stream were dull. I feel it tells two stories. The vibrancy of fall which I was experiencing that day and the soon to be brown dull leaves of winter. I hope that this image shows enough depth that viewers can tell the golden leaves and some of the browner leaves are floating and the dead dull leaves have sunk.
Any other help also appreciated.
Technical Details
Sony a7r iv 24-70mm @ 47mm
ACR - for tone
Nik CEP5 for contrast
Photoshop - very little clean up and some color treaks.
Nice one, Donna. I think we’ve all done this in fall and it’s part of the magic of renewal. I like the framing element of the floating leaves - like a window to the leaves below. You got a really clear view down there, too. Nice. My shots always have tons of stuff on the surface that I have to get rid of in post, but it looks like you had to as well so I guess I don’t feel so bad. I was going to post a shot like this, but with a lot of pine needles, but I haven’t gotten to editing it yet.
PS. I had someone ask about macro lenses for your camera…any recommendations?
@Kristen I think you own a Panasonic. I have the Sony 90mm macro. I think it’s their only macro lens they make. It takes an E-mount. I love it. It takes very sharp photos. One of the cool things about this lens is that the focus ring can be pulled toward you to switch to manual focus mode and away from you to switch to auto focus mode. No button to switch.
Thank you for your nice comments. I’m glad you liked this one.
Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. I do shoot Panasonic, so other lens mounts are outside my orbit and I can only give general advice so it’s nice others can give me some idea of what’s available and their experiences with it.
I think you did a great job telling the story. I like how the colored, floating leaves form a frame around the image. The one thing that I keep noticing, though, is the dark, empty area in the UL corner.
A very nice one, and I think that you did a good job with the depth that you were looking for. @Chris_Baird : I understand what you mean, but the spot isn’t bothering me. The empty areas in the image create the depth and the one in the UL corner isn’t distracting to me. But if @Donna_Callais agrees with you, she can paste a leave (preferably from another image) in the corner.
This is a nice fall scene, Donna. You’ve captured it well. I see @Chris_Baird note about the upper left corner. It does add a bit of distracting weight to that corner. But not a deal breaker at all. The colors look great too.
@Chris_Baird@Han_Schutten@David_Bostock Thank you for your nice comments. I’ll darken that LTC a little to keep it from pulling the eye. Glad you liked this one.
The brighter yellow leaves floating over the browner, darker, leaves has wonderful depth; very nice.
Cropping to a 3:2 format solved that ULC for my eye when eye played with this. Also, the highlights are slightly blown in the red channel, and if you have those in the original they might be worth recovery for a tiny bit more detail.
@Ola_Jovall@John_Williams Thank you for the comments on my image. John, I saw the highlights you were seeing as slightly blown out. I added a levels adjustment and tone down the highlights and darkened the midtones a tad. It made a difference. Thanks for mentioning that. I’m not sure what I will do with that ULC. I don’t feel like I want to crop this photo. I like all the leaves being there. I darkened it down a little and that helped. I might try to do some cloning to see if I could make that corner look natural. Thanks again.
