Fire in the sky

Netskimmer · Sep 29, 2011

I was on break today and while in the parking lot I noticed the sun setting through the clouds and thought it would make a good photo. Unfortunately the photo doesn't do it justice. The sun rays shooting through the clouds were much brighter and more defined. I can see in the histogram that I clipped the reds and a little of the greens. What could I have done to improve this image? Would a CPL have helped? I know that I should have had a bit more ground in the photo but I had to crop the image to remove roof tops and convenient store signs.

Forkie · Sep 29, 2011

Not so much "Fire in the Sky" as "Candle in the Wind"!

You had your aperture fairly wide at f/4.5. I'd've stopped it down to maybe f/8 or f/11 and went for longer exposure, possibly having the exposure compensation down a notch or two, too.

You also shot at 40mm, could you not have zoomed in a bit an got more detail from that hole in the cloud?

As for composition you should've either embraced the tree line and included it, or pitched up a bit and left them out altogether - it looks like the bottom edge of the photo has been ripped off!

Nevermind, there'll be plenty more sunsets to try!

Infinite_Day · Sep 29, 2011

Not bad but I would have altered the framing a bit as well. Where are you at in WV? Trying to decide if I saw this sunset last night as well.

Postman158 · Sep 29, 2011

Looks good. I personally might have gotten a little bit more of the mountains/hills underneath, if they were already gonna be pictured. That little sliver seems to be distracting. Maybe a 1/3 of more of the mountain? Thats must me

Netskimmer · Sep 29, 2011

Thanks for the responses guys.

Forkie,

I will give those settings a try next time. The reason I chose such a wide view was to capture the ray of light shooting of the hole towards the left. I real life it was much stronger and more dominant. I thought about just not having the tree line but I have seen others post without it and many complained about not having a sense of scale.

Infinite_Day,

This was taken in Fairplain, it's a very little 'town' just west of Ripley, which is a little town between Charleston and Parkersburg.

Postman158,

I would have shown more mountain (God knows we have enough of them) but any lower and the mountains were covered by rooftops, powerlines, gas station signs, ect...

Here is a tighter, panoramic crop.

Compaq · Sep 29, 2011

That tighter crop is too soft for it to work. Also, whilst the yellow part in the sky probably was nice to look at in real life, it just isn't very interesting to look at for me, I feel.
"Fire in the sky" photos are awesome. I may have one myself

Fire in the sky by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr

cgipson1 · Sep 29, 2011

I feel the shot loses context with the foreground cropped out. I saw that you have OK to EDIT.. so I did... how do you like? I was going to do a 5x4 crop also, but at this resolution it made it way to small.

Netskimmer · Sep 29, 2011

cgipson1 said:
I feel the shot loses context with the foreground cropped out. I saw that you have OK to EDIT.. so I did... how do you like? I was going to do a 5x4 crop also, but at this resolution it made it way to small.

I can't tell a whole lot because I am currently at work on their crappy crt's but your edit looks darker and the sunlight looks warmer than the original.

My main issues are the fact that the colors aren't as vibrant and that the rays of sunlight are as strong in the image as they were in reality. I've read that a cpl can improve shots of rainbows so I thought it might do the same for the sun rays.

cgipson1 · Sep 29, 2011

Netskimmer said:
cgipson1 said:

I feel the shot loses context with the foreground cropped out. I saw that you have OK to EDIT.. so I did... how do you like? I was going to do a 5x4 crop also, but at this resolution it made it way to small.

Click to expand...

I can't tell a whole lot because I am currently at work on their crappy crt's but your edit looks darker and the sunlight looks warmer than the original.

My main issues are the fact that the colors aren't as vibrant and that the rays of sunlight are as strong in the image as they were in reality. I've read that a cpl can improve shots of rainbows so I thought it might do the same for the sun rays.

I just dropped the gamma bit and then heavily saturated the entire image.... check it out on a decent monitor... more intense, but definitely a good bit darker. I might run it through again, and increase the contrast in the clouds a bit... see if I can bring them out more.

Infinite_Day · Sep 30, 2011

Netskimmer said:
Infinite_Day,

This was taken in Fairplain, it's a very little 'town' just west of Ripley, which is a little town between Charleston and Parkersburg.

I know that area a bit. I'm a northern panhandler myself so I didn't see that particular sunset. I like cgipson's changes - they make the arc of light look even more like fire.

cgipson1 · Sep 30, 2011

I may have overdone this edit... but let me know what you think....

cgipson1 · Sep 30, 2011

Infinite_Day said:
I know that area a bit. I'm a northern panhandler myself so I didn't see that particular sunset. I like cgipson's changes - they make the arc of light look even more like fire.

Thanks Infinite! Just playing....!