I took a trip to Big Sur back in November and hiked through the redwoods and took a few shots of the sun rays coming through the trees. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with this image but I think I am mostly there. The one thing I regret is blowing the highlights a bit but I figured its not too bad since I shot directly into the sun.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Processing, Just started using TK actions Panel. I am a bit over whelmed but I’m slowly adding more and more to my work flow.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Composition, I tried to use the light and shadows as leading lines but I’m very new to forest images so everything is an experiment.
Any pertinent technical details:
Canon 5d Mark 3 16-35 F4 L at 16mm
1/80 F/9 Iso 640
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
David, this is a pretty interesting image, I like the idea of using the shadows as leading lines to the backlit trees. The composition works well, I like the way you used the trees on the left and right as frames. The TK panel has a steep learning curve, but it looks like you are off to a pretty good start. The shadow detail in the trees looks good, and I like the color/contrast you have in the backlit leaves of the trees.
The highlights in the white sky are blown, but I think that looks natural for this type of scene, and not objectionable. However, there are some areas in the foreground / midground that feel too hot to me, and would benefit from local burning. These include the rock and fallen log on the left middle, and some of sunlit ground cover.
I assume this was taken as one exposure. I might have considered taking two bracketed exposures and blending them using luminosity masks to get better control over dynamic range. This is an alternate way to deal with the hot areas, rather than trying to burn them.
This is a quite nice forest scene, especially if you are just getting started with forest photography. The sorrel in the foreground offers a lot of visual interest and provides a nice path back to the trees. I do not think that the blown highlights in the background are a problem, as that part of the scene looks natural to me.
I agree with Ed that some of the highlights in the foreground and midground are a bit too bright (the rock on the left, some of the sorrel). This is a place you could try luminosity masks for the adjustment. For example, you could try a light-lights mask on a curves layer, pulling down the curve to darken only the brightest highlights in the scene (masking out the entire top of the scene to focus the adjustment only on the foreground and midground).
One other small technical thing to consider… If you use a smaller aperture, like f/16, you might have gotten a more defined sunstar and sunbeams. If that is a look that you like, you could try some different apertures in the future to experiment.
This turned out quite well. I would agree with the previous comments about the fore highlights, but agree that the sky looks fine to me as is. Real nice take on the Big Sur forest.
@Ed_McGuirk
I agree that some of the areas in the foreground were a bit too much. I had actually already burned them down a bit as they were even brighter but I tried Sarah’s idea using a Lights mask and bringing them down with curves and it seemed to do the trick. I also had bracketed my exposures unfortunately I did a poor job of doing so as this was my darkest frame .
@Sarah_Marino
Thank you for luminosity mask suggestion it evened out the light quite nicely. I wish I had shot this frame at F16, I believe I shot it hand held and my shutter was already getting slow so I shot at F9. I looked back at my shots and I had shot the next few frames at F16 and the sunstar was way more defined but my composition changed slightly and I thought this was the better image.
I think you’ve done an excellent job with this. The composition is strong and you did well with the light/shadow lines in the foreground. Forest scenes are quite difficult as most would admit and I think you found and crafted an excellent one from the Redwoods.
Good feedback and great job on the edit. Really not another suggestions I can see or make. This came out wonderfully.
As you have discovered, shooting redwoods without fog to lower the dynamic range is challanging. FYI, when I am bracketing a redwood forest shot to deal with dynamic range, I always crank out the maximum numer of shots ( at 1 stop increments) my Canon will do: 7. That doesn’t always avoid blown highlights, so after checking the histogram I sometimg increase the bracket increment to 1 1/2 stops, or shift the EV to the minus range.
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