Stonehenge - well not exactly

RxForB3 · Aug 30, 2012

This is an interesting little place in Goldendale, WA that I'm sure a few of you are familiar with. Oddly enough, it's a war memorial. Go figure. I just wish they would plant some grass around it. The dirt kind of ruins the aesthetic. In any case, how did I do with this photo? I was trying out my new lens, an EF 24mm F/1.4 L II. So far I love it and I can't wait to try some actual star shots on a night with much less moon! Thoughts/comments are very welcome!

Alignment by RxForB3, on Flickr

Designer · Aug 30, 2012

RxForB3 said:
Thoughts/comments are very welcome!

I like this. I like the composition, balance, and subject matter. Yes, the moonlight is overpowering, and essentially in the wrong place relative to the memorial, but I'm sure you will continue to photograph this area with continued success. Thank you for sharing.

macpro88 · Aug 30, 2012

I wish I could see more of the structure.

I think this is maybe where a bracketed set of exposures then combined in HDR would have looked nicely if not over cooked.

Other than that its nicely composed frame wise and the stars and over powering moon is cool.

Bynx · Aug 30, 2012

A bit of light painting here would be nice to get some details on the monument silhouette. Otherwise its a nice shot.

RxForB3 · Aug 30, 2012

I thought about some light painting, but the shots were really too short to have time to do much. If I went for a longer shot, things would have been much too overexposed.

I actually was able to take some shots that had the Stonehenge very well exposed, but I didn't care so much for them because it made it seem more like daylight than night time. I can go back and resurrect some from the recycle bin and take a few cracks at an HDR or various versions.

Macpro, what do you mean by wanting to see more of the structure? As in better exposed? Other shots that show the rest of the structure just for curiousity's sake? Or something else?

Designer, what do you mean by the moon being in the wrong place? Not exactly aligned? Not the best place compositionally?

As always, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions!

Bynx · Aug 31, 2012

If your camera was on a tripod then an additional longer exposure for the structure could have been layered in Photoshop to create your night scene with more details of the walls. Ive been to stonehenge and the atmosphere you have here is pretty similar. Nice job.

macpro88 · Aug 31, 2012

RxForB3 said:
I thought about some light painting, but the shots were really too short to have time to do much. If I went for a longer shot, things would have been much too overexposed.

I actually was able to take some shots that had the Stonehenge very well exposed, but I didn't care so much for them because it made it seem more like daylight than night time. I can go back and resurrect some from the recycle bin and take a few cracks at an HDR or various versions.

Macpro, what do you mean by wanting to see more of the structure? As in better exposed? Other shots that show the rest of the structure just for curiousity's sake? Or something else?

Designer, what do you mean by the moon being in the wrong place? Not exactly aligned? Not the best place compositionally?

As always, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions!

I think my eyes, MY eyes, wants to see more detail and exposure on the structure. But that's me. The image is great don't get me wrong, the shadows and the starts/moon are awesome. You did a great job.

412 Burgh · Aug 31, 2012

If the stone/subject was more lit up and viewable I think I would like it.

Frequency · Aug 31, 2012

This is an excellent work ; i too feel if a bit more detail was available in the structure

RxForB3 · Aug 31, 2012

Ok, per request: More detail!!

Stonehenge Revisited by RxForB3, on Flickr

The struggle is keeping the detail in the structure without making it feel like daytime. I reprocessed the same image with some different techniques and managed to keep more of the detail in the stonehenge. I'm thinking I should add in some magenta as I did in the other edit. Perhaps this still isn't enough detail? I have some other photos of it that truly do look like daytime. Perhaps I should try editing one of those and dropping the exposure rather than boosting the exposure in this one some. I also tried doing an HDR with Photomatix Pro, but I had absolutely no luck obtaining decent results.

amolitor · Aug 31, 2012

HDR! HDR!

On second thought, no. I like it with almost no detail. You get a much more intense sense of looming if there's just a bit of texture in there. With detail, it's just a bunch of rocks.

RxForB3 · Aug 31, 2012

I'm not sure why, but the HDR just didn't work out. Maybe I'm just not proficient enough with HDR, but there were lots of ghosting issues due to the movement of the moon and in most cases it turned out very grainy. I'm not really sure, but I just couldn't get it to work. Here's another edit, but this time from a different photo. Not sure which of these three I like best.

I think a lot of the photo is lost in translation to Flickr. I've noticed several other people make comments about that, as well, but I don't recall anyone saying how to prevent it. Any thoughts?

Here's the third edit:

Stonehenge Re-Revisited by RxForB3, on Flickr

macpro88 · Aug 31, 2012

Nice work, Revisted looks great! Re-Revisted... not sure about the moon. the 1st and 2nd are the best by a long shot me thinks, and the 2nd is my favorite. well done and great work!

mjhoward · Aug 31, 2012

Post up the RAW file for download. You can get a hell of a lot more shadow recovery from that than you can any JPG.

RxForB3 · Aug 31, 2012

Will do. I would love to see some other people's editing so I can see what can be done in more skilled hands. How do I post RAW files? Would I need to use a separate file storage site?