Boat at the Pond 07-0926

[rph]

There's a pond at the back of the property here, where several boats are usually tied off. I went back a couple of nights ago to let the baby feed the ducks and saw someone paddling across the pond. I couldn't get set up in time to catch him, but I found this and thought it was interesting. I've been trying to learn as much as I can about post, so feel free to offer any constructive criticism you have!

[jon_k]

Originally Posted by rph

There's a pond at the back of the property here, where several boats are usually tied off. I went back a couple of nights ago to let the baby feed the ducks and saw someone paddling across the pond. I couldn't get set up in time to catch him, but I found this and thought it was interesting. I've been trying to learn as much as I can about post, so feel free to offer any constructive criticism you have!

Everything here is awesome. There is one technical thing however that could have made this picture "perfect" (in my opinion anyway.)

You did F/2.8 for this image. You shot with the lens wide open. Shooting wide open results in soft image quality on a lot of lenses, and always shallow depth of field. Maybe this was your intended effect.

F8 is usually the sharpest for a lens, and f/11 is sharp too. Anything behind f/11 gives you a larger depth of field so the stuff in the background is more in focus.

When you do landscapes, stopping down to f/11 or greater is always a good rule of thumb. Ansel Adams and the other legends used f/64 back in the day! No wonder everything was in focus!

I'm a fan of sharp images though, some people like the soft focus. It boils down to preference, and its nothing you can do wrong. The exposure and composition is perfect for me.

[kenw]

let me echo jon's compliments, this is an excellent shot, altho the softness of the treeline can be viewed as a positive feature and is certainly not objectionable to me in the least.

Let me add however that in order to move that aperture up to the mid-range of the lens (for the reasons jon mentioned) you will likely need a tripod as your shutter speed will by necessity get very long under these low light conditions. Yeah, using a tripod kinda takes away from the spontaniety but the results are often spectacular in the differences it can make.

You need to print this and hang it proudly, it really is beautiful.

[rph]

Thanks, guys!!! Shooting something like this and finding out that other people appreciate what I saw encourages me more than you can imagine. I appreciate the suggestions, too.

I did use a tripod, which is the only way I could get this one at all. By the time I saw this, there was very little light left. I started to switch lenses, but didn't even think I had time for that. I even tried to paint it a bit with a flashlight, to keep some detail in the boat.

I was worried about the softness of the tree line at the time, and tried to use a smaller aperture. I shot one at f/16, right after this. The only issue there was that the waves (they're there, just smoothed out by the shutter speed) had the boat moving so much that the ONLY thing in focus was the trees and sky. If I'd seen it earlier, I would have had time to play more, but there just wasn't enought time, then.

I also could have increased the ISO, now that I think about it. I'm still having to get used to that ability. Sometimes it's right there (as an option) and sometimes I revert to my film days, when it was just "find the shutter speed and get an aperture that works". I've got a lot of learning curve to go!!!

The funny thing is that the original boater I tried to shoot started passing back and forth through the scene during these longer exposures. By that time he was a silhouette, in my eyes, and nothing more than a smudge on the file.

[rph]

And, now that I think about it...
If I knew how...
I could probably combine the two shots in photoshop, using the depth of field from the f/16shot and the in-focus boat from this one...

But...I have NO idea how to do that...

[kenw]

post both of them and someone will have a go at it, hopefuly explaining how along the way. I think I can, but explaining it without actually doing it is tough.