Looks nice. I prefer the horizon to be at or close to the top 1/3rd mark.sanj said:How could I have done better? Thx in advance.
1dc. 16-35mm F4 IS lens. F22. 1/160 shutter. ISO 160. Tripod. I blended two exposures using layer mask in PS. I also changed focus according to what I was exposing for. Please critique.
I like the picture, I like the expression. Composition with the straights of the table leading into the background. Just really good.sanj said:How could I have done better?
sanj said:How could I have done better? Thx in advance.
That's what the 9-bladed apertures in the new lenses all produce at f/16 and a little less so at f/11 - 11-24 f/4 16-35 f/4 IS, 24-70 f/2.8 II, and others. It takes a little getting used to, but I've grown to like it. You can drop the aperture to f/8 to get starbursts closer in appearance to the 8-bladed lenses.Marsu42 said:These starbursts are sooc and not done with a PS plugin? Interesting.
rpt said:Looks nice. I prefer the horizon to be at or close to the top 1/3rd mark.sanj said:How could I have done better? Thx in advance.
1dc. 16-35mm F4 IS lens. F22. 1/160 shutter. ISO 160. Tripod. I blended two exposures using layer mask in PS. I also changed focus according to what I was exposing for. Please critique.
Maximilian said:I like the picture, I like the expression. Composition with the straights of the table leading into the background. Just really good.sanj said:How could I have done better?
I have nothing to criticize except for the horizon being exactly at half height (= compositon a little bit boring).
But right now I have no feeling if getting it higher or lower would make the picture look better or not.
(edit: I like both: the evening sky as well as the landscape)
But that is nothing for post, so please no reframing or so. You should have tried this during the session (camera higher or lower).
Orangutan said:I like the perspective, it feels almost as if I'm sitting at the table, waiting for my friends to arrive. I like the light of the candles on the table and through the glasses. My only question is that it appears to have a bit of a "dead zone" between the table and sky: what would that look like slightly brightened so our eyes could walk continuously from table to cloud?
monkey44 said:I like the composition exactly as it appears ... sometimes, those rules (rule of thirds) need to go out the window and the allow the scene to emerge as presented. Because the sky has a dynamic sense already - with varying degrees of light change in it - one could actually state it is within that boundary if you choose a different line in that light variation as the point of transition.
It might appear different if the trees we absent, or less tall - but trees framing the scene to the degree it does allows a variety of interpretations of how the composition gets defined.
It reminds me of an exclusive outdoor restaurant where we often dined in a farming community years ago -- Ojai CA -- called the Ranch House -- outdoors, but very classy. If anyone is in that area ever, and if it still exists, it's worth the price (not cheap, but excellent food) ...
One comment:: It appears slightly soft -- and I'm not sure what any of us can do to change that in this kind of subdued light -- and in this case, I believe it adds rather than detracts from the image ... soft, intimate, romantic
mackguyver said:I like the colors and subdued lighting. The background looks great with the trees, hills, and sky exposed just right. I would turn up the brightness just a hair in the foreground and possibly on the tree on the right as there's a lot of pure black. The water in the pool on the right is considerably darker than the water on the right, with the the table obscuring the natural transition from light to dark, and it throws the balance off a bit. A small fill light or some careful adjustment in PS could fix that. Compositionally, I think the table and pool need a bit more separation as they blend together somewhat due to their reflective surfaces. An elevated or lower camera angle might do that for you.
These are nit picks - I think the image is very nice, and the setting is beautiful. I wish that was the view from my backyard!