Hello fellow Fstoppers,
This shot is from my trip to the US back in October, I finally got around to looking at it and editing it yesterday. It's from Saguaro National Park in AZ. Thoughts? Advice? Any and all comments are welcome. Thanks everyone!
1/6
F14
ISO 100
17mm (APSC)
Sakazaki-san,
Nice image. It is rare to see the desert so green. Nice composition ...the main sagauro cacti is a bit tight to the top. Love the sky, and lighting of the foreground. It looks like the processing has left some haloing around the saguaro cacti. The halos detract from the otherwise beautiful image. It should be an easy fix.
Best wishes,
Mike
I love this shot, It would really benefit if the cacti were silhouettes contrasting against the coloured sky
The image has all the right elements of a great image, but personally, I feel as though the composition is a little weak. The sky looks great, but your foreground is a bit cluttered (bush on the bottom right is distracting), and your main subject (biggest cactus in shot) is too closely cropped at the top of the image. As mentioned above, there is some haloing around the edges, which should be easily fixed as well. When taking an image, first see what you wanted your subject to be (the big cactus) then try to focus on that cactus the most. I would have maybe gotten closer to the cactus with a wide lens and shoot in portrait orientation. when you're shooting a scene, always try shooting at different angles and perspectives so you can have different options to play with later. Sorry if this feedback seems a little harsh. It's not a horrible image, and there is a lot of potential here. The image just feels a little unbalanced to me. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the feedback guys! I really appreciate it. The haloing, yeah that was just careless. I hate haloing and can't believe I missed that. I've taken the advice into account and tried another version. In this one, I cropped it to focus more on the main saguaro, and I cloned in a bit more sky at the top. (the original was already very close to the top). The sky might look a little repetitive, it was literally a 1 minute job. I also brought down the greens a bit. And of course fixed the haloing.
I like this composition more than the original. The cacti is still out of focus but there really is not much that post production can fix with that. Overall its a good shot and shows alot of potential; just make sure your subject is sharp and in focus. But its a good shot and every photographer has taken pictures where their subject isn't perfectly sharp.
I think I prefer the original composition in comparison to the crop. I think it's good you brought down the greens a bit, also because your light source low to the horison, it makes your dodging very evident. Try to touch up your halos and let some value overtake saturation in the flora.
A touch too contrasty.