Roseberry Topping.

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Mike
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The much photographed Roseberry Topping - North Yorkshire. The previous frame to this was without the lovely late afternoon light on the hill. I was down a small bank, having set up and then sat for about 20 mins, waiting for some cloud to drift across, at that time there was no sign that sun the was going to come from behind a bank of thick cloud, so I took the shot, packed up and walked up the bank. Then looking out to the west I noticed a gap appearing in the clouds, thinking that the sun might burst through, I went back to the spot and set up again, waited about 20 mins again and this was the result. I was a happy chappie :)

Late Afternoon Light. by Mike Mayo, on Flickr
 
The oranges look over-saturated to me, losing detail, and the whole image appears flat without sparkle, tonally over-compressed. The foreground could be much darker and the sky have more highlights & shadows to give it some tension and excitement with that long lead in from the fallen trunk.
 
The oranges look over-saturated to me, losing detail, and the whole image appears flat without sparkle, tonally over-compressed. The foreground could be much darker and the sky have more highlights & shadows to give it some tension and excitement with that long lead in from the fallen trunk.

Thanks for the comments Toni, the sun was late in the day hitting the hill hence its warm colour, but I agree the oranges look a bit OTT, I have since dropped the Orange down to -5 and does improve it.
I had a 3 stop hard grad over the top part and the only thing I have done in PP (Lightroom) is dropped the highlights to -42, which seems to have brought in a little detail to the flat sky, clarity +10 & vibrance +5

I have tended in the past to overcook things in PP so trying to avoid too much tweaking.
Maybe I have gone too far the other way?
I did have the shadows up a tad but now dropped that to zero, darkening the foreground slightly.
As for being tonally over-compressed am not sure what you mean, am not up to speed on the technical jargon, but i do see what you mean about the detail on the hill, it is a little soft on closer inspection.
 
By tonal compression I mean that there don't appear to be any blacks or whites, and everything is around the mid range. If you'd shot the scene without the grad the the bottom of the image would be 3 stops darker and looking more natural. That also explains why the shadows on the tree branches are dark higher up, but light further down - you did your processing before taking the pic, rather than afterward. :)

Remember this is *just* my opinion & tastes, and if you prefer the image this way then don't take too much notice.
 
By tonal compression I mean that there don't appear to be any blacks or whites, and everything is around the mid range. If you'd shot the scene without the grad the the bottom of the image would be 3 stops darker and looking more natural. That also explains why the shadows on the tree branches are dark higher up, but light further down - you did your processing before taking the pic, rather than afterward. :)

Remember this is *just* my opinion & tastes, and if you prefer the image this way then don't take too much notice.

Thanks Toni, its always interesting to get other peoples thoughts :)
 
FWIW my wife just looked over my shoulder and said "that doesn't look real". She says that about some of my shots too, as well as quite a few photos on here. ;)
 
FWIW my wife just looked over my shoulder and said "that doesn't look real". She says that about some of my shots too, as well as quite a few photos on here. ;)

Bummer. I thought that looks most real then most photos here with the overworked things that I never see in real life.
 
Well done on exercising the patience necessary to the shots in landscape photography.

I actually really like the photo, and normally I hate a frame within a frame where trees are used around a subject. Here it works, although I find the blurry branch top left a tad distracting.

I can understand what @ancient_mariner is getting at, for me the orange (Reds/Yellows) are not oversaturated in the highlights, they are not in fact clipping which is good. The issue is the colour balance and brightness of the shadows in the bottom half of the shot. If you colour correct the warm cast from the shadows which would not be there, and darken the foreground, to undo the un natural effect caused by the grad filter then you have a really nice image. The brightness contrast, and colour contrast by darkening the levels and removing the warm cast from the foreground really makes the Rosebery Topping pop.

Nice shot though, and well done on trying something different, the little tree leaning in opposite to the Topping leaning out is a good touch.
 
I think it was a mistake to use the fallen tree as a lead-in. I'd have removed it and concentrated more on the distant view.

FWIW my wife just looked over my shoulder and said "that doesn't look real". She says that about some of my shots too, as well as quite a few photos on here. ;)
How nice.
 
Well done on exercising the patience necessary to the shots in landscape photography.

I actually really like the photo, and normally I hate a frame within a frame where trees are used around a subject. Here it works, although I find the blurry branch top left a tad distracting.

I can understand what @ancient_mariner is getting at, for me the orange (Reds/Yellows) are not oversaturated in the highlights, they are not in fact clipping which is good. The issue is the colour balance and brightness of the shadows in the bottom half of the shot. If you colour correct the warm cast from the shadows which would not be there, and darken the foreground, to undo the un natural effect caused by the grad filter then you have a really nice image. The brightness contrast, and colour contrast by darkening the levels and removing the warm cast from the foreground really makes the Rosebery Topping pop.

Nice shot though, and well done on trying something different, the little tree leaning in opposite to the Topping leaning out is a good touch.

Thanks Craig, I think there is a lot more to landscape photography for me to learn :)
 
I think it was a mistake to use the fallen tree as a lead-in. I'd have removed it and concentrated more on the distant view.


As I said earlier, its always interesting to get other peoples views ;)
 
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