On the Water 05/15 Galveston Texas

[wiredhernandez]

OK guys. I was up at 4:30 am for a morning off work to fish and maybe snap a few shots... There was a chance of storms this morning and at sunup things were looking really dramatic with the sunrise behind the looming clounds. I snapped a few but really missed out on the photo drama opportunity. Please tell me how you would have shot this ? I am definitely a novice enthusiast and appreciate any pointers you may have. All shots are straight off the cam with no processing. I would have really like to capture the varous colors in the sky and not have the shoreline so dark. I dont think there was any real difference with AP mode after increasing my ISO value because the cam doubled my shutter speed arrgh ...Thanks for your input.


AP Mode / ISO 800 / AP 10 / 28mm / EXP 1/400

AP Mode / ISO 1600 / AP 10 / 28mm / EXP 1/800

AP Mode / ISO 1600 / AP 10 / 135mm / EXP 1/200

 

[Overread]

For landscapes I would really take and use a tripod for these scenes - even a lighter cheap one (just keep within hands reach for when it falls). That would let you shoot with a slower shutter speed, and thus use a lower ISO - you want your ISO down in the 100 area - aperture looks good to me, but that aspect for landscape is one that I am not strong on, but I feel that you have the right idea with a smaller aperture (bigger f number).

Aside from that if you want the sky and land exposed well in a shot then you have 2 basic options.
1) use a ND grad filter which will reduce the amount of light coming in for one part of the filter whilst allowing normal light through the rest -that lets you reduce the amount of light coming from the sky and thus you can expose for the ground as well in a single shot. Note that its best to get the filters that fit into a holder (Cokin or Lee) so that you can adjust the position of change (the area where the blocking and non-blocking meet) so that you can adjsut for the amount of land/sky in your shot -- the lens screw in sort have this divide right in the middle - and that is not always where you want the land/sky divide appearint.

2) HDR - that is take two or more shots - one shot exposed for the sky where the ground gets underexposed (Black) and another for the land where the sky gets overexposed (white) and then combine the results into a single image using either manual methods or an HDR program.

That is about all I can input to the taking of the shots - as for the ones you have I only have limited editing advice, but I would try to add to the "pop" of the first two but increasing contrast and also running some noise reduction over the shot.

 

[wiredhernandez]

Thanks for the reply. It sounds as if the ND filter would be the way to go. I was fishing on boat so the tripod multi shots probably wouldn't work for me. I will work on that . Thanks for the input.

 

[wiredhernandez]

I did work on HDR function of my camera a bit yesterday. I come upon such scenes periodically on the water and will use HDR when practical. I appreciate the time taken with your reply. A real steady hand as there is not much room for a tripod on the boat..