The Lonely Salton Sea Updated

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
1

The Lonely Salton Sea
The Lonely Salton Sea2000Ă—1000 396 KB

Update

20230126-Birds-Salton-Sea-7904-Edit
20230126-Birds-Salton-Sea-7904-Edit1500Ă—750 234 KB

Image Description

Salton Sea back in the 80s was a popular place but because of a mistake, it is very well polluted. Not many live there anymore but photos still it as a beautiful location. I wanted to show this view with the picnic table and how vast it is. Also there is still life as seen in the distance with birds in the water and air.

Type of Critique Requested

  • Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.

  • Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.

  • Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.

  • Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

I cropped a 2:1 for landscaped but was not sure if more or less foreground or sky would work best here. Other feed back welcome.

Technical Details

R6m2 EF 24-70 f/2.8 at 50mm 1/5000 f/13 ISO 2000 I don’t why I had the ISO that high expect I was shooting birds. I need to set up my C1 C2 and C3 on the camera, right?

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Dean, this is a cool image. What was the mistake that polluted it? I think the pano crop works well. Nice touch with the picnic table.

Yes, I live by those custom settings on my cameras.

Cheers,
David

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I forget why TSS is so rank, but isn’t there basically a big ghost town around it with a few stragglers still living in shacks? Strange place, but one I’d like to visit one day. I think I may have approached this differently and tried to make the picnic table much more present in the scene. It’s getting a little lost with those bushes.

Ever since I’ve had the option to use Custom Modes on a dial I’ve done so, starting 10 years ago with my GH3. I find these three settings most useful -

C1 = tripod, macro & landscape

2 second shutter delay, aperture priority f/3.2 baseline, fixed ISO, AFS/AFF focus with peaking engaged, photo style standard, auto white balance, center weighted metering

C2 = handheld, non-wildlife

aperture priority f/3.2 baseline, auto ISO, auto white balance, multi-metering, AFS/AFF with 225-point focus, minimum shutter speed 1/15th, photo style natural

C3 = handheld, wildlife

shutter priority set to 1/2000 baseline, Custom multi focus point AFS w/focus peaking engaged, multi metering, auto ISO, photo style natural

Each has some function button customization - especially C1 since I use the screen and it has many soft buttons that can be displayed - focus bracketing, DOF preview & built-in curves are some I use here.

For C3 I have near and far focus buttons set so that I can shift where the lens hunts for subjects/focus very quickly. I can also switch on the pre-burst capture on the dial so images will go into the buffer when focus is engaged, when the shutter is released those write to the card and more go into the buffer. The pre-burst buffered shots update and replace themselves every few seconds as long as focus is engaged. Great thing for birds taking off.

Hope you can find something that makes sense for your style - it’s so easy just to switch from one to the other and know you have some optimal settings.

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Hi David,

Here’s a video that explains it (I was wondering about that as well).

Salton Sea Link

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@Merv , thanks for the link. Wow, I had no idea. It might be interesting to go there to photograph those old structures…

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That’s what I was thinking…hmmmm…you’re much closer than I am…when are you planning on being back with some great images? :smiley:

Maybe we can talk Dean into shooting old shack architecture for us? Hint, Hint!

7

Dean,

I think you’ve done a great job telling a story - that picnic table pretty much says it all. I actually didn’t notice the second one in front of the bush; I think it works better that the 2nd table is obscured.

Processing, colors all look good, as does the exposure given the bluebird skies. Speaking of birds, those few in the sky work well and provide some interest. My only tech suggestion would be to burn the triangular area in the LR quadrant; not too much, but just enough to keep the eye in the frame. I wouldn’t want to crop any more off the bottom because I like the sand/rock on the left below the table.

Thanks for sharing!

Lon

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Thanks for all the comments on this. Next time I am in the area may explore the west side where the town is. I did tone down the LRC a little as Lon suggested. I will try the Camera settings Kris posted, those look pretty good.

1 Like