Photographing water - C+C

[jfrabat]

OK, so I have these 2 shots of water (taken at different times, with different cameras, in different places), but I wanted to get your feedback on how to make them better. I did a bit of editing (mostly color correction and cropping) in post with PaintShop Pro, so feel free to critique that as well! By the way, the second one was the first attempt (about a year ago) and the first one was about a week ago... Taken with different cameras, as well...

 

[SCraig]

The first one has a distinct green cast to the water that I suspect isn't supposed to be there. I like the exposures but I don't like the color cast.

 

[STM]

I like the second one a lot better, though I think you could stand to crop some of the rocks out on the right side. It has a nice sense of place. In the second one the water so dominatesthe image that it really loses a sense of place. The foliage on the left side is also distracting in my opinion.

 

[jfrabat]

Yeah, on the first one I had to make some changes to the color; maybe that is why the color is off. I knew there was something that did not look right, but I could not place it until now... on the river one, how would you crop it? I dont mind you guys editing my pics...

 

[SCraig]

I kind of like the foliage on the left of the first one, I think it gives it a sense of scale. However having seen some of STM's shots on another forum I'll gladly bow to his expertise.

As to the color, this is more what I had in mind:

Watch your status bar in Paintshop Pro. It gives the cursor location as well as the RGB color at the cursor position. For something that is gray the red, green, and blue values should be virtually equal. On yours the green value was around 20 points higher than the red and blue values which gave the water that green cast.

I also think you might have a big hunk of dust on your sensor. It shows up in the right-most stream just above where the water starts to foam. If you can't see it I'll put a red circle around it.

 

[mjhoward]

I really like #2... nice composition and that dreamy feel. The only thing I may suggest trying differently for a shot like this in the future is to try a composite. What I mean is take one photo as you did but then take a second photo with the same exposure only with faster shutter speed to eliminate the soft leaves and grass due to movement (wind blowing, etc.) Be sure not to move the camera when you take the second photo. Then in PP create a couple of layers that will allow you to keep the dreamy, flowing water from one exposure, but also keep the sharp leaves and grass of the other exposure. That's just being nit-picky though, good job :thumbup:

 

[jfrabat]

I like the second one a lot better, though I think you could stand to crop some of the rocks out on the right side. It has a nice sense of place.

I did a bit of cropping on this one already to take out the sky, which I should have cropped out when composing the shot... You say crop further?

In the second one the water so dominatesthe image that it really loses a sense of place. The foliage on the left side is also distracting in my opinion.

The original is a bit wider, but there was a column on the right and a light spot on the top left that I found detracted from the shot

I kind of like the foliage on the left of the first one, I think it gives it a sense of scale. However having seen some of STM's shots on another forum I'll gladly bow to his expertise.

As to the color, this is more what I had in mind:

I also like the foilage a bit, but I guess that's just personal preference. It CAN be a bit distracting, but otherwise it would be just water, I feel... But I definitively like your color better.

Watch your status bar in Paintshop Pro. It gives the cursor location as well as the RGB color at the cursor position. For something that is gray the red, green, and blue values should be virtually equal. On yours the green value was around 20 points higher than the red and blue values which gave the water that green cast.

Where is this status bar? I looked for it, but did not see it...

I also think you might have a big hunk of dust on your sensor. It shows up in the right-most stream just above where the water starts to foam. If you can't see it I'll put a red circle around it.

It doesn't show up in any other pictures... Besides, the camera is fairly new. May be some dirt on the lens when I took the pic? I should have cloned it out, though...

I really like #2... nice composition and that dreamy feel. The only thing I may suggest trying differently for a shot like this in the future is to try a composite. What I mean is take one photo as you did but then take a second photo with the same exposure only with faster shutter speed to eliminate the soft leaves and grass due to movement (wind blowing, etc.) Be sure not to move the camera when you take the second photo. Then in PP create a couple of layers that will allow you to keep the dreamy, flowing water from one exposure, but also keep the sharp leaves and grass of the other exposure. That's just being nit-picky though, good job :thumbup:

Well, as I said, I took that one about a year ago (July 2011), and I was not as into photography as I am now. But at least I had the common sense to place the camera on a rock (I did not have a tripod with me) and leave the shutter open... Now a days, I would probably do an HDR so that the trees I left out would come out nicer...

For your reference, here are the originals (this way, you can also critique my editing style):