Critique Style Requested: In-depth
The photographer has shared comprehensive information about their intent and creative vision for this image. Please examine the details and offer feedback on how they can most effectively realize their vision.
Self Critique
When I arrived at this location a group of photographers were off stage to the left of the area where I wanted to shoot my shot. They had lights and were using them to light up the boulders for close up macro shots of the boulders. I sat up my gear and waited for the light. Then just about the time the light was getting good the group of 3 people moved into my shoot at the far rock just right of center totally ruining my composition. I was left with no choice but shoot my photos with the idea that I would have to remove them from the final processed image. I used the Photoshop’s Generative Fill AI to remove them. After a few retries, I was able to get a believable replacement of the people. I generally avoid using such “AI” tools but the situation left me no other option. I feel that I was able to save the photo by using the AI function.
The one thing that I would improve was the fact that the focus bracketing /stacking didn’t give me good sharp images for the bottom row of images. I was using a setting in the camera that was supposed to focus on the nearest object. The camera was failing to focus on the nearest objects in the scene in a couple of the sets of images. I need to work with the camera to understand better how to get it to pick the nearest object to start the focus bracketed set.
Creative direction
As a Wall Mural photographer my goal is always to capture a very high gigapixel resolution image. While this image doesn’t meet my goal of being a gigapixel or larger image, difficult to do when you have ocean waves in the image, at 517 megapixels (11,378 x 45,515 pixels) it is still quite high resolution. Prior to our departure to New Zealand, I had planned to photograph a sunrise at this location. I had arrived some 30 minutes before sunrise hoping to capture the dawn light. I had scouted the area the evening below and the skies were overcast. As I hiked to the location I had scouted out the previous evening I could see that there was a narrow gap on the horizon that would allow the rising sun to peek through. As I sat up my gear I could see that the dawn light was going to be fabulous. I shoot this moments before the sun rose.
Specific Feedback
Aesthetic, Conceptual, Emotional and Technical
Technical Details
This panorama image is made up of 24 (2 rows x 12 columns) focus stacked images derived from 137 focus bracketed images. I was using my Canon R5 mark 2, Canon 100-400mm zoom at 100mm, f/11, 1/60th sec. exposure and ISO 400.
I pre-processed the RAW images using Adobe Camera RAW to create tiff files. I use Helicon Focus Pro for focus stacking and PTGui for stitching the photos. Final post processing was done in Photoshop.
Description
The Moeraki Boulders are unusually large spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave-cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden. They occur scattered either as isolated or clusters of boulders within a stretch of beach where they have been protected in a scientific reserve. These boulders are grey-coloured septarian concretions, which have been exhumed from the mudstone and bedrock enclosing them and concentrated on the beach by coastal erosion. These rocks can only be photographed at low tide which thankfully happened right after sunrise when we were at the location. I scheduled our visit to this location near the New Moon which results in low tides at sunrise and sunset.
