First of all, yay, one of my favorite subjects to photograph. Call me crazy or obsessed but one of the things I judge all lenses on is their ability to create pleasing sunstars! This photo (and most of my photos that have sunstars in them) was taken with the Zeiss Loxia 21 on the Sony A7R2 at f/14. Honestly, the best part of this lens is that it creates such crisp sunstars even at f/5.6. Most lenses have poorly defined sunstars that are messy; however, this lens creates very pleasing sunstars which don’t look too crazy. Maybe my opinion!
What technical feedback would you like if any? None
What artistic feedback would you like if any? Processing advice is always useful, but in this case I’m pretty happy with the photo.
Pertinent technical details or techniques: f/14
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
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Hot damn! Nicely done. I love how much detail is preserved in the shadow of the valley. Also, the balance between the light on the cliffs and the setting sun is very pleasing.
Beautiful scene. I find the colors rather oversaturated for my tastes, primarily the yellows and to a far less degree, the reds. Otherwise, most enjoyable.
A grand and beautiful sunrise/set image. Wide enough angle to catch the sun and the light on the cliffs together in one frame and there’s just enough interest in detail in between the make this a complete image.
I might agree with Harley on the saturation. Certainly well within personal choice though. The orange/yellow around the sun and horizon a little strong - but only by a touch.
Terrific sun star! I can see why one would have this be a main criteria in selecting a lens!
Matt: Spectacular scene and a superb capture. I have to confess that I haven’t sought out sun stars when in the field but images like this are opening my eyes to the possibilities. >=))>
Love the composition Matt, the pano format works really well here. The small things going on in the valley floor nicely fill up the negative space in the middle. I too will often base lens purchasing decisions on the quality of the sunstar they produce, an often overlooked, but very important point to consider.
I respect your personal choice on the saturation, its very subjective. To my taste, the red/orange saturation in the cliffs is fine. To me its the yellow and blue saturation in the sky that goes a bit too far. I think if you dialed the sky saturation down a little, it would let the rich light on the cliffs stand out even more. The composition and light are so strong here, I think it’s worth spending time tweaking the saturation to get even more out of this image.
Fantastic image, Matt! I’m really loving this composition. It has a really cool oppositional symmetry between the land and sky. The cliff bands (land element) have a counter clockwise arc towards the sun (sky element) on the horizon, while the clouds (sky element) arc clockwise toward the mountains (land element) on the horizon. The sun burst really ties the image together. The balance of the image would fall apart without it. The the reds of the cliffs and the purple tones of the clouds work in beautiful harmony with each other, but I do feel that the strength of the yellows kind of diminishes the impact of the red/purple relationship. Otherwise, great! Well done.
Thanks man for this thoughtful reply. I honestly didn’t see a lot of what you see when I shot it or edited it. Agree with you and others about the yellow and could easily take those down a bit in post!
