I was trying to make the best of a cloudy afternoon in Penang when I got a break in the rain. I had to leave the next morning. I liked this scene as it seemed calm and peaceful (I think most of the fishing is done in the early morning). I chose black and white because there wasn't much color to begin with and it helped show off the clouds a bit.
I shot this from an elevated side walk rather than down on the shore as it allowed me to get some separation between the boats. Shot at 26mm focal length and with a 10-stop ND filter for an 8s shutter. The mountains on the mainland on the distant shore don't show up as well as I would have liked.
Would anyone have made different choices to capture this scene?
i would not have done a long exposure on this particular setup and a skinnier panorama style shot may be the way to crop this. great mood though nice and calm
I did a fast exposure and I found the ripples in the water to be distracting, but everyone sees something different.
I hadn't considered cropping it that way. I appreciate the suggestion. I was shooting around a large sea port in the distance on the right and an area of island building on the left, so this was my shooting window, really.
Thanks for the comment.
Good thought processes Jason. The baack and white choice means that looking at this it could have been taken a 100 years ago and the scene would still be the same.I like Joseph's crop of it.
I like the idea and I agree with the crop suggestions.
Personally, I like the choice to go with a long exposure, but that's because I'm a LE junkie. However, the downside of that is that the boats tend to lose their sharpness. I've also had this problem when photographing things like fireworks with boats in the foreground. If it's at all possible, bit might be worth taking a quick photo to get the boats, then getting a second shot to get the LE, then putting the still boats into the LE shot so you get a nice still subject.
However, that's just my personal preference, it's totally possible that other people prefer the motion.
I had the same Idea here, just do two exposures to fix the moving boats.