River Shot

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gcm89

New member
Hello Everyone!

So I attempted my first river shots yesterday. I am moderately happy with the results. I feel that I could have gotten a better shot if I had a better idea of how to.

I shot this at F36, 1 Second and ISO 100.

I could not get the exposure right. All the photos kept turning out over exposed. As you can see if the top left hand corner, there is a lot of over exposure and I could not figure out how to fix it.

Any feedback would be great!

Also, should I use a filter for shots like these?

DSC_0398.jpg
 
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bechdan

Senior Member
A gradient filter can generally help with balancing the exposure of the sky something like a graduated nd8 or nd4 are handy to have in the bag. These vary in price from a few bucks to a hundred. Ive recently bought myself two inexpensive ones and they work fine, I may get a better one later on when Ive mastered them.

Another simpler way to do it would be to zoom in a little so the sky is not in the shot
 
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fotojack

Senior Member
This would be my take on this shot. Cropped to eliminate the overexposed left top corner...added a little saturation...sharpened just a touch....

What do you think? Better or worse? :)DSC_0398.jpg
 
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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
Did you shoot this in RAW? If so then you can manipulate the over exposed parts to bring it more in line and balance it out more. Also another way to handle a shot like this is HDR. You could have blue sky and the running water.
 
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Sandpatch

Senior Member
gcm89 said:
... I shot this at F36, 1 Second and ISO 100. ...
Click to expand...

Where was the sun when you took the shot? It looks like it may have been to your left and perhaps you were shooting too much into it and it washed out the vivid colors you were hoping for.

I'm guessing that you chose this exposure setting to try to blur the water flow? Neat idea!
 
hark

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
I didn't crop like Don did but feel it would help. I sharpened a little, burned a little, and added a slight bit of contrast because the original seemed to be a little too light and hazy for my preference. Nice composition!!!

DSC_0398edit.jpg
 
Michael J.

Michael J.

Senior Member
I tried too. What did I do: the overall exposure a bit down - Clarity and Vibration a bit up as well as saturation. Cropped it from the top to the bottom cos I think the river is the point to see and sharpened a bit. All I used LR3.6

river-1.jpg
 
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Rick M

Senior Member
Aside from the sky issue, you really need a Neutral Density filter to reduce your shutter speed. The ND will slow the shutter and also allow you to use a larger aperture, f8-f13 would reduce the probability of diffraction which is going to soften your image at f36.
 
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Pic4me

Senior Member
The shot appears slightly out of focus. Did you use a tripod? Possible the biggest issue is the f stop and the shutter speed like mentioned above.
Can you re shoot this at different settings. Try aperture priority at around f/11 or so and a faster shutter speed. Do several shots with different setting then make notes when you get home?
Hope this helps
 
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