Pretty much all of May, June and part of July we motor up to the Econfina Wetlands (about three miles from my house) to shoot landscapes and wildlife, though mostly avian. At this time of the year, sunrises are almost always spectacular. This is one of my favorites and hangs on my dining room wall at 30x60. This was shot from a boat, in this case, anchored but with 90% of the avian shots from here, the boat is moving - slowly but moving.
Specific Feedback Requested
Any feedback welcome.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
D810, 200-500 @300mm. f/8, 1/320. ISO 400
Processing was done in ACR for color and contrast and in PS for tonal range corrections.
Great stuff! I have a sunset shot taken in the Lower Atchafalaya basin on my wall. Not quite as big, but those trees!
The composition is strong, but the colors look a little magenta to me. Tough call since I wasn’t there. I like the size of the sun and had a feeling you used a long lens for this because of that. Terrific sky and handling of the highlights.
Lovely photo. Great composition and light. Color casts are an interesting thing. Our eyes and camera sensors are wired differently. Being there, the magenta cast looks natural. Making a photo of the same thing might look “off”. Its a personal choice, to keep it the way your eye saw it or change the photo to look more “natural”.
The magenta is overly strong. But the image is primarily one of magenta and exaggerating that fact oftentimes makes the point better. I exaggerated the greens in the Hoh forest for the same reason. If the composition was really strong then you can desaturate the colors to emphasize it. But here, as I see it, it’s mostly about color. So I would keep the exaggerated color.
This is gorgeous, Chris. Color looks good to me and perfect exposure for the sun, too. I really curious about this however; can I assume this is the westernmost Econfina, where it empties into Deer Point Lake, or is it possibly the easternmost Econfina southeast of Tallahassee before it empties into the Gulf?
It’s where it empties into deer Point Lake. I live about 2 miles (as the crow flies) from where this shot was taken down on Highpoint Rd. When the shooting season starts, I get up just before dawn and take the boat up to shoot until about 9AM when most of the birds snuggle up in the tall grasses.
It’s beautiful. I paddled the Econfina many years ago when I lived in Mexico Beach but never made it this far south. I’ll have to find myself a public boat ramp and launch some time soon. Thanks for the reply.
That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, other than you both processed it in a similar fashion.
Of course that’s the value of critique, you can get subjective assessments from a larger number ofpeople, each with their own taste.
I agree with others comments that while the magenta feels strong, this image is primarily about color, and going with a stronger magenta re-inforces it. I tried reducing magenta by adding green, and it did some sickly looking things to the greens and the blues in the image. I think you can get away with this strong a magenta here because the sun is still above the horizon, and one would expect to see strong, rich colors if that was the case. If this was a twilight image instead with the sun below the horizon, I would definitely want to reduce the magenta saturation for more of a pastel color, but that is not the case here.
