Another image from my shoot a week ago in the fog. It was a productive morning!
What caught my eye about this scene was the pattern in the repetition of the major trunks of the foreground trees repeated in the leaning background trees. I saw that I could stack them in the frame but was unsure which aperture would yield the soft focus on the background to my liking. So I shot this at f22, f11 and f5.6. I liked the f11 best as it softens the background branching just right to still retain the structure. The fog was surely a critical element to the success of this image.
I have also upped my game recently with a couple of techniques regarding focus. First, I set the mirror-up lock on before any release of the shutter. All my images these days are shot with the mirror up since it is so crucial to minimizing camera shake.
Then, I recently began zooming in to my focus point in Live View and manually focusing on the subject. That guarantees I’ve got my focus spot on.
Between these two techniques, my images are sharper than ever.
I would be interested in your techniques or have other comments on the photo.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Any
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Any
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
nikon d610
nikkor 70-300 mm f4.5-5.6 @ 155mm
1/30 sec
f/11
ISO 100
tripod
Well this certainly looks cold, damp and chilly. The strong blue tones set the winter mood, and convey the sense of a harsh environment. I like the repetition of the tree shapes to the right in the fog. Fog can be a wonderful tool to play with sharp and soft contrast to create a sense of depth.
A couple suggestions for tweaks to enhance this. I would clone away the branch in the LRC, it competes with the 2 leaning trees above. I could also see a slight crop from the left. I know you were going for a high key approach, but to my eye, the very brightest highlights look slightly blown out. I took this into PS, used a TK L4 mask on a curves adjustment layer, and set blend mode to multiply, and the highlights looked better. Highlight recovery in Lightroom brushed locally onto the problem areas with the adjustment brush would do the trick too.
Another nice image Matt, it has a lot of moodiness.
This is another strong moody image and compliments your last post rather nicely, Matt. the atmospherics are lovely with the fog and snow and I like the horizontal format for this scene. I agree with @Ed_McGuirk’s suggestions for a couple of tweaks. I have one other suggestion. For some reason the couple of hanging leaves toward the LRC catch my eye when opening the large version. I will be curious to see if anyone else mentions them. Anyway, beautifully done.
This is quite beautiful, Matt. Your composition is perfect to me; in my mind I would not crop from the left as I like the way the more distant tree is centered between the leaning trees and the frame. Cropping would alter that relationship and might cause an eye magnet. I do agree with Ed’s clone suggestion in the LRC and there also a clone opportunity in the URC (just a tiny bit of a branch sticking out of the frame). I might also try to increase sharpening a wee bit.
Wonderful, wintry and so very a quiet image. Just silence.
I think the higher key and low contrast in the trees works beautifully here as does the cooler hues.
If any crop on the left, I would put it in the “shave” category. If anything, you might burn down that ULC to a value a little closer to the brightness on the right. Maybe even a vignette all the way around to keep the eyes off the corners. But all suggestions are tweaks to an already wonderful scene.
I also saw the troublesome branch in the LRC and removed it as well as those leaves that Ed L. identified. Sometimes content aware fill works really well and sometimes not in scenes with a lot of details such as criss-crossing branches.
I liked Lon’s suggestion for a vignette so I applied an inverted radial filter to do the same with a little more finesse.
I like this, Matt. First off, thanks for putting in all the info; it adds to the interest of the image.
That limb in the LRC didn’t really bother me when I first looked at this, but I guess I do like it better with it gone.
This is nice and moody, and I really like your comp. I think you did a great job of capturing the feeling of this place. Fog can be difficult to get right.
Well done!
