Mt Doom and Mt Tongariro New Zealand

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This is the first picture I've put up as I'm pretty new to the site and photography too for that matter. This is mt ngauruhoe, well known as mt doom in the lord of the rings films and mt Tongariro its neighbour on the left of the picture. Taken at sunset a couple of weeks back. Constructive criticism welcomed.

mt doom.jpg
 
I've got to say I love the colours and composition of this, with not much foreground and a large sky. The only thing that detracts is it doesn't look that sharp/crisp. Did you use a tripod or was this hand held as that maybe the reason if it was a longish exposure?
 
If I remember correctly it was taken on my tripod. I dashed out because I realised the sunset might be pretty good that evening and didn't have much time before the light went. Actually its 3 photos using HDR, I used photomatix essentials to stitch them together and selected to reduce the noise which I guess might have made it a little unsharp.

I liked the clouds and the light and of course the peaks. The foreground in the shot is pretty unremarkable so I was glad it came out very dark so as to de-emphasise it.

EDIT:- actually I remember now these were taken without my tripod owing to the lack of time I had before the light went. I did take some other shots of this scene on a later date and then I used a tripod, but they didn't come out so well as the moon was too bright. I now know on the moon shots I should have exposed for the moon and then for the scene and combined the two. I'll try that again at some point.
 
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I personally don't mind technical aspect of the shot, but what I would do is to open up shadows in the tree area and add clarity in post processing.
 
Its a killer view as far as landscapes are concerned. It is simply epic light and surroundings.

On a technical level it does fall apart mainly due due to softness. Tripod and / or accurate focus is what let you down.
 
Thanks for all the advice. Next time I will plan ahead a little more and take my tripod out with me to get things sharper, I was using a 70-300mm lens at the 70 end and leaning against a lamppost to try to get things a bit more stable, but obviously it wasn't good enough, I guess a combination of a heavier lens, no tripod and a longer exposure for the lower light contributed to that. I have also taken on board the comments on under exposure. Looking at the histogram I can see this now. Here is another version in which I've cropped the foreground a little more (the foreground is unattractive scrubby fields and bushes, which had some old dirty snow drifted into field corners which meant there were some distracting light patches in the foreground area), adjusted the exposure and added some clarity.

mt doom sunset adjusted.jpg


This is the view outside where I live and I'm here for another 6 weeks so I should get a chance to have another go at it.
 

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