Attn Photogurus. Please help with this picture.

[glen]

Go ahead. What would improve this?
Canon Sl1
Sigma 35mm f/1.4
This shot is f/8 30 sec. ISO 100

 

[randomrogue]

I would probably crop the picture significantly. I don't like the palm tree with all that movement or all that sky. I'd focus on the pier and the bridge with the fence and lawn in the foreground.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Agreed. Long exposure to show movement works best when there's really only one thing moving. E.g. clouds or water or people. If there's too many things going on then it just looks blurry. I would try to winnow it down to just a static subject and those clouds, which turned out beautifully with the colors.

I would even take things further than rogue's suggestion, and crop out all the green (preferably by moving the camera all the way up to the edge of the water). The bright green grass (almost yellow in places where it's well-lit) just kills the mood. You could have a beautiful shot all composed of purples/pinks/blues with the water reflecting the sky, the pier and bridge in the middle, clouds and sky in the background.

Looking again at the palm tree, I think it could make a good subject (even with all the movement) if it were completely non-illuminated, i.e. just a black silhouette against that lovely smear of clouds.

Also, at f/8 and long exposure the lens you're using isn't necessarily going to have to be the greatest IQ in your bag. I probably would have used a zoom lens covering the same range that would have given more ability to zoom to compose.

 

[glen]

Agreed. Long exposure to show movement works best when there's really only one thing moving. E.g. clouds or water or people. If there's too many things going on then it just looks blurry. I would try to winnow it down to just a static subject and those clouds, which turned out beautifully with the colors.

I would even take things further than rogue's suggestion, and crop out all the green (preferably by moving the camera all the way up to the edge of the water). The bright green grass (almost yellow in places where it's well-lit) just kills the mood. You could have a beautiful shot all composed of purples/pinks/blues with the water reflecting the sky, the pier and bridge in the middle, clouds and sky in the background.

Looking again at the palm tree, I think it could make a good subject (even with all the movement) if it were completely non-illuminated, i.e. just a black silhouette against that lovely smear of clouds.

Also, at f/8 and long exposure the lens you're using isn't necessarily going to have to be the greatest IQ in your bag. I probably would have used a zoom lens covering the same range that would have given more ability to zoom to compose.

Wow, that was super helpful! Thank you slashbinslashbash. We have a lot of talent here. I hope some more folks chime in.

 

[randomrogue]

If you haven't tried it already, take a silhouette shot of something with clouds like that (but don't let the shutter speed drag), and use lightroom's split feature to play with colors.

If that was my shot I would have probably jumped the fence, got real close to the pier, exposed for the sky to make a silhouette out of the pier, tried to make a good relationship between the clouds and reflection on the water, and then made the colors pop with yellows and reds using split toning.

Image as an example:

 

[slashbinslashbash]

Wow, that was super helpful! Thank you slashbinslashbash. We have a lot of talent here. I hope some more folks chime in.

No problem. It's easy to be a critic in the comfort of your own bed with no time pressure. No idea if I would have thought of all of that stuff (or any of it) on the spot. (Although I definitely would have gone with a zoom lens like my 24-105mm since it was stopped down with long exposure on a tripod. This would have let me experiment with different compositions even if I kept the camera in the same place.) It does seem like a nice location, and I can see why you set it up like you did. Typically, more colorful = better. But I think the clash of colors ended up spoiling it in this one.

 

[glen]

No problem. It's easy to be a critic in the comfort of your own bed with no time pressure. No idea if I would have thought of all of that stuff (or any of it) on the spot. (Although I definitely would have gone with a zoom lens like my 24-105mm since it was stopped down with long exposure on a tripod. This would have let me experiment with different compositions even if I kept the camera in the same place.) It does seem like a nice location, and I can see why you set it up like you did. Typically, more colorful = better. But I think the clash of colors ended up spoiling it in this one.

I only own one lens.
No tripod.
I used a 5 pound bag of green coffee beans.
I went for 1 hour and tried a lot of exposures. It was fun, and just an experiment to get feed back and refinements on. Love the comments!

 

[radhak]

Frankly, I don't see a reason to use such a long exposure (30 sec) for this shot. I presume this is dawn or dusk, so I would have tried getting a dark silhouette of the tree (and tilted, moved the camera a wee bit to not truncate the tree top).

 

[GoSharks]

Looks like you have some blown out greens in the grass by the base of the tree.

 

[Aharami]

Looks like you have some blown out greens in the grass by the base of the tree.

I actually like that

 

[finbarqs]

photography will always be subjective, so my input is that I'd wish you got the entire palm tree in the frame, rather than it being cropped off.