two seascape sunsets :-(

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Name
ben
Edit My Images
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hi all.
I took these tonight, but they seem not right. parts under and over exposed.
taken on tripod with hotshoe level and remote shutter switch.
exif should be here.
all help would be greatly received as I am getting put off quite rapidly. reading loads of books and taking hundreds of pictures but still not right!!!
sunset2531x800.jpg


sunset1800x617.jpg


thanks for looking.
 
Here's a good tutorial on how to use filters for Landscape images, I think its exactly what you need - you can get a good Cokin starter set for around £25 from a high street 'tog' shop.

http://www.irishlightandcolour.com/LandscapeFiltersTutorial.php

Hope it helps, lovely scene by the way!

Also, I see that you are focused on the sun and the sea. You should focus on the foreground hills, and use a higher aperture such as F/11 or even up to F/16 to keep the whole scene in focus.
 
If its purely to do with exposure, when you edit it in (assuming you have photoshop) why don't you tweak the "exposure" and "fill light" sliders.

Because your taking the shot pointing directly at the light source your foreground will immediately turn into a silhouette. To bring back the detail in the foreground push the "fill light" slider bar up a little.

Likewise for the areas that are over exposed, push the "exposure" bar down a bit.

It will be take a bit of compensating between the two and also playing about with the "blacks" and "recovery" bar to get it near as dam it right.
Just be careful not to over do it otherwise you can lose a lot of detail and mess up the overall contrast of the shot.
 
Yeah use fill light to recover the foreground.

To get this right in camera you would of needed a gradual neutral density filter (GND).
This is a piece of glass that goes in front of the lens, the top is tinted, this gradually (!) fades out.
It would be perfect for this shot because it would prevent the camera "seeing" lots of the light from the sky, this means that you could use a wider aperture (or slower shutter) which would let you expose the foreground properly.
I took some with a GND last night, I'll go sort them out and post so you can see.
 
I've had a go in Lightroom - used one of the graduated filters on the sky in LR that recreate the effect of the ND Grads people are talking about.

Also some fill light on the foreground and a little sharpening.

sunset2531x800.jpg
 
I've had a go in Lightroom - used one of the graduated filters on the sky in LR that recreate the effect of the ND Grads people are talking about.

Also some fill light on the foreground and a little sharpening.

sunset2531x800.jpg

Where is sharpening? i cant find it in lightroom :lol: problem is sun look blur after edit.
 
There's a 'detail' section on the right hand panel in develop which has sharpening and noise reduction in it.

See what you mean about the sun - is this better?

sunset2531x800.jpg


Would of course work much better on the original file. Shooting in RAW gives you a lot of room to edit.
 
hi guy's.
thanks for doing this, need all the help I can get at the moment!!!
I have shot this in raw so I will have a play.
I would like to learn to get as much correct in camera first then tweek in photshop/lightroom.
 
hi all abd thanks for these replies.
Have a new one taken thursday evening.
any comments welcome.
lighthouse800x531.jpg
 
Lots of potential in that shot, i think the foreground needs lightening a little again.

Some fill light. recovery

lighthouse800x531.jpg


only way to get it better in camera will be to use filters to even out the exposures, or overexpose a little without blowing the sky to white, and bring back the sky in lightroom, you should have less noise from using fill light etc that way..

further tweaking

lighthouse800x5312.jpg
 
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