The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is the Belt of Venus over the San Francisco Volcanic Field in northern Arizona.
Specific Feedback
Whenever I photograph the Belt of Venus, I’m a little at sea when I process the shots. There’s a subtle, fragile gradient in the sky that I don’t want to wreck. I usually need to bring the saturation in the sky up. If I’ve exposed to the right, I often need to lower the luminosity. I’ve tried various adjustments but I’m not sure I’ve found the best way to do this. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Technical Details
ISO 100, 77mm, f/16, .3 sec.
Critique Template
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It’s a subtle and elusive phenomenon and you did a fine job on it. The distant mountains add a nicely mysterious setting. Your dry desert air is a big advantage here. I wonder about going just a touch lower in exposure (in the raw stage) to place the brighter tonalities in the sky closer to the middle of the histogram – that would give you the best chance for increasing contrast of the sky to show off the subtle color change there.
There ya go! That’s lovely. The Belt of Venus is one of my most favorite atmospheric phenomena! Here in Montana in the winter, with snow on the ground, the colors can be very pronounced and it’s especially nice to get the backscattered light on a snowy mountain range . I really like your shot here, especially with the edit.
The reworked version is perfect. The belt of Venus is coming through wonderfully. And so is the gray band of Antitwilight. The cool thing about the gradient from the gray band up into the belt of Venus is that the gray band is actually the Earth’s shadow cast onto its own atmosphere. Here is paper on the subject if anyone is interested. Here
What a beautiful photo! I didn’t know this was called the Belt of Venus. Your edit brings out the gradient of the belt nicely.
I’ll be leaving Flagstaff tomorrow after my first visit of any substance to the area. What a beautiful location, I hope to come back soon. (Funnily I’m coming from San Francisco the city – guess I didn’t travel far, ha!)
Matthew, I’m glad you got to visit the Flagstaff area. It takes a while to learn where the good places are but there are a lot of them. Thanks for the kind words.
