Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
So I know with a KP8+ almost everyone on earth who was in the northern hemisphere and had clear skies was probably taking aurora pictures a couple of days ago. Here in Bergen, which is statistically the rainiest city in Europe, we finally got a true good weather window with the clouds staying mostly offshore for once.
This picture was by no means the most vibrant light or most intense colors… it was actually looking west whereas most of the aurora activity was to the south (also a huge rarity here as it is usually confined to the northern horizon). But I liked the composition with an unobstructed view of the sea, city lights in the distance, and some interesting streaks to the right of the main aurora activity.
The image itself has been minimally processed other than increasing the exposure, denoising, a bit of dehazing, and taking the highlights / saturation down in the clouds as I felt some of the originally captured bright whites and purples reflecting off the city lights were distracting. Colors themselves have not been altered.
Specific Feedback
I would like suggestions about how to make this appear more professional and ready for a fine art print.
Technical Details
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- Vision and Purpose:
- Conceptual:
- Emotional Impact and Mood:
- Composition:
- Balance and Visual Weight:
- Depth and Dimension:
- Color:
- Lighting:
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- Technical:
Looks like you had an interesting view of it! I have no idea of the actual appearance, but from an outside observer’s viewpoint, the very light green/cyan on the left (and its reflection) feels too light/bright. And the city lights are blown out to a distracting degree. A reprocessing with a linear profile would probably help, and might with the light green issue as well.
I’m surprised at the amount of blur toward the left edge, especially obvious in the city lights. It is probably due to the f/1.8. It could be good to do some daylight tests – the wide lenses I have all suffer at the edges until I stop down quite a bit.
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Thank you. I really appreciate the feedback.
Here are a few looking at the main part of the sky with absolutely no edits… so you get an idea of the raw colors and vibrance. When I shoot video I am generally at 3200 ISO (versus much lower here) and the colors are very close to the original photo I submitted.
Anyhow I appreciate the feedback… always trying to get better. 
Amber,
No idea about the brightness, as I have never seen the Aurora personally, not even two night ago 
. But the image does seem brighter than I would imagine, especially the clouds, unless what is lighting them are the city lights.
This is very minimally processed - I actually took some of the white and highlights down to minimize any glare from the city lights and other sources.
No changes to colors or exposure or vibrancy or any of that. The aurora really is spectacular
I second @Diane_Miller’s recommendation to test the lens. My 1.8 is surprisingly soft at the two widest apertures, but sharpens nicely at 2.2 and is even better at 2.5.
Of your additional images, that second one is nicely sharp. Were the settings any different for that image?
Only difference would have been exposure time by 0.5 to 1.0 seconds. But yes - I will test out the apertures and see if I can get a bit more consistency. Excellent advice - thank you.
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