July 4th sunset - please Comment.

[Stephen.C]

"Calmbeforethejuly4thfireworksstorm" heh.
Went down early to the lake on July 4th to get good seats for the fireworks, and ofcourse to take photos. Couldn't of asked for a better view.
Please comment, I really love hearing peoples opinions. This was one of the first nights I had the time to take sunset pictures and play around with the manual mode settings. I was really pleased.
D3000- Tamron 10-24. f/3.5 1/80 sec and 100 iso.
Tell me what you think! Signed up yesterday, if you'd like to get to know me, I put a post in the "welcome" section.

 

[deekim]

looks super clean, love the colors! did you use a tripod for this?

 

[Stephen.C]

looks super clean, love the colors! did you use a tripod for this?

No, sadly I forgot to bring my tripod.

 

[bigtwinky]

The colours are sublime, but the far edges of forest and that tree on the right definately show signs of low light hand held, they are blurry...either camera shake or I'm thinking a too wide apeture.

I think the composition of the sky is nice... having the sun more on the right keeps my eye there, but I'm not keen on the tree on the right, blurry or not. It does somewhat frame the image, but I think the image might be better without. Same goes for the shore line and the weeds/grass in the foreground... I'm thinking cutting some of that bottom out would work