Hook Lighthouse

I love that you included movement of the ocean water and did not try to flatten it. Gives the photo drama. Peter

I love that you included movement of the ocean water and did not try to flatten it. Gives the photo drama.

Peter

It is a nice shot overall. You need to rotate this CCW to level the horizon, which also straighten the lighthouse. Its wild and bleak, - that comes across. Its dark, - a little too dark for me, and this may be the result of not using an ND grad filer to control the brightness of the sky. You can certainly leave it as is with that leveling, but Ive tried a mod with the lover area brighter, as if a grad filter was used. Regards Willie

It is a nice shot overall.

You need to rotate this CCW to level the horizon, which also straighten the lighthouse.

Its wild and bleak, - that comes across.

Its dark, - a little too dark for me, and this may be the result of not using an ND grad filer to control the brightness of the sky.

You can certainly leave it as is with that leveling, but Ive tried a mod with the lover area brighter, as if a grad filter was used.


Regards


Willie

I quite like the dark look, it says 'evening', though I find Willie's mod attractive in its own way. In my mod I made a small Levels adjustment to get a few deep black tones and then a Curves adjustment to boost the contrast. In fact it's the contrast that is lacking in the original - there are a lot of grey tones so the image lacks 'bite'. I've kept the colours but they have more vibrance. You want the viewer to experience the same excitement you had when you were there so you need to make sure the image grabs their attention. Easy enough in post processing. I also levelled this, using the sea on the far left, zoomed in with the Grid visible in Photoshop. In doing so I saw that the sides of the lighthouse were then properly vertical and didn't need any correction, so well done for getting your camera set up without any tilt (assuming no lens correction afterwards!). I can see the movement in the sea, though a 1 second exposure would have given that little bit more than you have here and be more noticeable. I wouldn't go much more than that as you then get that milky look or 'flattening' as Peter says. Given the light and the settings used you'd have struggled to expose correctly at longer speeds, so the use of a neutral density filter would have helped. Not something huge like a 10 stopper, just for example an ND8 which is 3 stops, sufficient to give you some leeway with shutter speed experimentation. Keith

I quite like the dark look, it says 'evening', though I find Willie's mod attractive in its own way.

In my mod I made a small Levels adjustment to get a few deep black tones and then a Curves adjustment to boost the contrast. In fact it's the contrast that is lacking in the original - there are a lot of grey tones so the image lacks 'bite'. I've kept the colours but they have more vibrance.
You want the viewer to experience the same excitement you had when you were there so you need to make sure the image grabs their attention. Easy enough in post processing.
I also levelled this, using the sea on the far left, zoomed in with the Grid visible in Photoshop. In doing so I saw that the sides of the lighthouse were then properly vertical and didn't need any correction, so well done for getting your camera set up without any tilt (assuming no lens correction afterwards!).

I can see the movement in the sea, though a 1 second exposure would have given that little bit more than you have here and be more noticeable. I wouldn't go much more than that as you then get that milky look or 'flattening' as Peter says. Given the light and the settings used you'd have struggled to expose correctly at longer speeds, so the use of a neutral density filter would have helped. Not something huge like a 10 stopper, just for example an ND8 which is 3 stops, sufficient to give you some leeway with shutter speed experimentation.

Keith

The correction of verticals and horizontals was what struck me as most necessary. The lighthouse looked as if it was being blown away by the storm... Otherwise, I'll just note a slight halo round the building which i am sure is the result of processing, though whether it's a filter giving edge effects or burning in which has been slightly imprecise. I'm very happy with the degree of movement and tonality that you've got here. It looks really stormy (on a day that I've had sleet on my car windscreen...)

The correction of verticals and horizontals was what struck me as most necessary. The lighthouse looked as if it was being blown away by the storm...

Otherwise, I'll just note a slight halo round the building which i am sure is the result of processing, though whether it's a filter giving edge effects or burning in which has been slightly imprecise.

I'm very happy with the degree of movement and tonality that you've got here. It looks really stormy (on a day that I've had sleet on my car windscreen...)