Might try cropping about 1/2 of the water at the bottom - the even 1/3 division, to me, detracts.
Why f2.2 and 1/3200sec? The resolution really suffers, at least on this laptop, especially in the tree line. Perhaps a crop up-sized is the problem?
The eye expects, and is drawn to, areas of focus (that is edges with sharp contrast) - frankly I do not see anything in focus, and oddly my eye is drawn to what appears to be someone standing on the riverbank.
I glanced through some of the other images in your portfolio - nice work - and I did not notice any glaring focus issues either.
I suspect that the uploaded version doesnt do justice to your efforts. Its nice to see someone work with square crops.
I agree with Bob: I would have shot more stopped down, maybe f8 or so.
Clouds look oddly flat and lacking contrast, detail. Is that a processing effect or the challenge of wide dynamic range?
Possible two dust spots lower right?
Do you have an original to repost?
Thank you so much guys! What I'm getting from this is that even on an 85mm I can stop down a lor more and still have DOF. As for the clouds, I didn't have a gad ND filter and the 5D has a pretty bad dynamic range. Did my best!
I will try this shot again sometime.
Thank you all again,
I don't take your words lightly.
The 5D actually has one of the longer dynamic ranges but no digital sensor can handle a backlit scene with one exposure.
The square crop works OK for me given that the focal point figure is in the middle between the two trees that frames him. All together it creates a tunneling effect that pulls attention to the center. That said I don't find it very compelling as a landscape / scenery shot and the figure in the background because he's too small and it's too dark to see and understand what he's doing leaving me wondering what it's about.
It would work better as an establishing shot in a series, followed by medium shots and close-up background figure.
cgardner wrote:
The 5D actually has one of the longer dynamic ranges
Wait, really? I read somewhere it could handle about 11 stops, where as cheaper canon crop cameras can do 12ish. Isn't there a Pentax that can do 14? Also, the 5D doesn't shoot in 14bit, so shadows are a joke :/
If you set the camera to take automatic bracket shots in a burst and hold reasonably still you can get away without a tripod. PS can align them for HDR processing. From the 5D's menu, scroll to AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) and use the wheel on the back to select the bracket width.
I played around with it a while and only the fusion version seemed useable, but I confess I know very little about Photomatix. It's one of those software products such as Lightroom I have but haven't yet bothered to actually learn.
