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Archive 2015 · A dance with Aurora...

EdwinM
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · A dance with Aurora...

Congratulations to EdwinM for winning Feature Thread of the Week with 12 votes - View Previous Winners

One of the things that most landscape photographers thrive for, is to shoot iconic locations with the right moment. Natural atmospheric moments or phenomena are a plus when we shoot earth laden natural structures. Here is a shot of Kirkjufell, a popular spot in Iceland with Aurora dancing above its peak.

Should you wish to view a larger version please click on this - Larger and Higher resolution version

Thanks for viewing.

Aug 10, 2015 at 08:32 AM

dgdg
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · A dance with Aurora...

Sweet shot.
The foreground is relatively bright, so I assume it is a composite?
I'd consider darkening the foreground a bit and tame the yellow patch beneath the mountain.
Great shot!

David

Aug 10, 2015 at 08:48 AM

EdwinM
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · A dance with Aurora...

dgdg wrote:
Sweet shot.
The foreground is relatively bright, so I assume it is a composite?
I'd consider darkening the foreground a bit and tame the yellow patch beneath the mountain.
Great shot!

David

David,

It's a single shot, attached is the raw files from the series. The yellow patch is from an incoming vehicle's headlight thus the incandescent color on the waterfalls. This was taken with a quarter moon fyi. Thanks for the tips though.

Aug 10, 2015 at 09:05 AM

triggermike
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · A dance with Aurora...

I think it's great as-is! What a sweet composition and series of events to fall in place. Congrats.

Aug 10, 2015 at 09:07 AM

Brad Williams
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · A dance with Aurora...

Nice photo Edwin! I like the composition here with the falls, mountains, and the auroras dancing overhead. Nice work!

Aug 10, 2015 at 09:57 AM

angel manguel
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · A dance with Aurora...

Edwin, it's a beauty!! Well done.

As far as post-processing goes, I am no expert but wonder what your feeling is about cloning out the telephone poles at the base of the peak? I see the bridge to the left of the image too, so human intervention in the scene will remain I suspect. I don't have a strong feeling one way or another but where possible removing annoying things like wires and poles makes sense to me.

Another nit I have with a lot of SINGLE images posted here is that many photographers do not include EXIF data. I think that is unfortunate because a great deal can be learned from examining this information. I note that you have not posted EXIF data for this single image. Would you be able to repost with EXIF included?

Keep up the excellent work. I look forward to seeing more.

Alan

Aug 10, 2015 at 10:14 AM

dgdg
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · A dance with Aurora...

Ahh, the moon...
What great combination of light!

David

Aug 10, 2015 at 10:16 AM

Sunny Sra
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · A dance with Aurora...

Edwin,
beautifully done! love it

Aug 10, 2015 at 10:38 AM

ben egbert
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · A dance with Aurora...

Great shot, left a comment at 500PX

Aug 10, 2015 at 10:40 AM

JimFox
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · A dance with Aurora...

Hey Edwin,

That is sure cool to see the dancing aurora and overall a very nice image. Two thoughts though. 1st, that water in the lower right corner is distracting, and losing that in the image I think would strengthen it. 2nd, it looks like the camera was exposing for the ground in this single image exposure. The issue then is the sky is brighter then it should be, or at least to look at this the sky sure seems to bright. I would leave the ground layer as it is, and darken the sky about 2/3rds to 1 stop.

Jim

Aug 10, 2015 at 10:56 AM

Cheryle Sytsma
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · A dance with Aurora...

triggermike wrote:
I think it's great as-is! What a sweet composition and series of events to fall in place. Congrats.

I too like it as it is...
Well captured!

Aug 10, 2015 at 11:05 AM

Cheryle Sytsma
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · A dance with Aurora...

angel manguel wrote:
Another nit I have with a lot of SINGLE images posted here is that many photographers do not include EXIF data. I think that is unfortunate because a great deal can be learned from examining this information. I note that you have not posted EXIF data for this single image. Would you be able to repost with EXIF included?

Exif data is so helpful to we who are learning...

Aug 10, 2015 at 11:08 AM

EdwinM
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · A dance with Aurora...

angel manguel wrote:
Edwin, it's a beauty!! Well done.

As far as post-processing goes, I am no expert but wonder what your feeling is about cloning out the telephone poles at the base of the peak? I see the bridge to the left of the image too, so human intervention in the scene will remain I suspect. I don't have a strong feeling one way or another but where possible removing annoying things like wires and poles makes sense to me.

Another nit I have with a lot of SINGLE images posted here is that many photographers do not include EXIF data....Show more →

Alan,

Thanks for the pointers but for me, unless the elements distracting is dominating a certain part of the frame or hinders visual path like vibrant colors then I cropped them. I felt the poles adds a sense of scale in my part.

The exif are intact, check the link of the higher res version the exif details are there.

Thanks.

Aug 10, 2015 at 11:13 AM

EdwinM
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · A dance with Aurora...

JimFox wrote:
Hey Edwin,

That is sure cool to see the dancing aurora and overall a very nice image. Two thoughts though. 1st, that water in the lower right corner is distracting, and losing that in the image I think would strengthen it. 2nd, it looks like the camera was exposing for the ground in this single image exposure. The issue then is the sky is brighter then it should be, or at least to look at this the sky sure seems to bright. I would leave the ground layer as it is, and darken the sky about 2/3rds to 1 stop.

Jim

Hi Jim, how is it going? Thanks for the tip about the water on the lower right, will try cropping it, I just feel Im gonna cut more of the side of the mountain than I already did and it might be more of a distraction. But i'll definitely consider it. Keep those valuable tips coming.

For the sky or exposure per se, I think I'm aiming for that brightness, as visual memory would tell, the sky lit up because of the aurora and add the quarter moon's light. Since we are viewing this in various forms of mechanical devices such as smartphones, tablets or pc's, we may have varying brightness according to our calibration. So I'm posting the photo with a histogram which I think will be constant no matter what device we use.

As you can see the histogram is on the black-shadows side of the histogram. I feel it maybe too underexposed if I mellowed down the brightness of the sky.

Thanks again for the feedback man, hope to meet and work with you soon! Regards to Doc Lester.

Aug 10, 2015 at 11:23 AM

dswiger
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · A dance with Aurora...

Ed, I like it just the way it is
The aurora is nicely balanced with the falls & the colors are just right.
I wouldn't remove a thing.

Thanks for posting
Dan

Aug 10, 2015 at 11:26 AM

Chaz
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · A dance with Aurora...

Gorgeous! Print BIG and enjoy.

Aug 10, 2015 at 11:36 AM

nburwell
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · A dance with Aurora...

I'm a big fan of how you processed the image as is. Hopefully you plan on printing this bad boy out. Excellent work!

-Nick

Aug 10, 2015 at 02:12 PM

Markus L
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · A dance with Aurora...

Very nice aurora shot Edwin, beautifully done.

Aug 10, 2015 at 11:24 PM

1337.
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · A dance with Aurora...

Fantastic!

Aug 11, 2015 at 11:49 AM

blueshadows
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · A dance with Aurora...

As others have said, this is very fine just as it is. You've explained your thinking very well, e.g. the so-called distraction in the lower-right corner.

I have no evidence, but…it seems that some of the nicer images that appear here also receive the largest number of comments offering helpful hints on how to IMPROVE it.

Aug 11, 2015 at 12:29 PM

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