The Making of "Mystic Sunset"

The winning image in our "Starbursts" photo contest

By PF Staff in Photo Contests on May 4, 2014

"Mystic Sunset" by bruno.cirou

Réunion island is a paradise for who like contemplation. This particular evening I was going to this beach with my shooting "Pentaxian" partner Sonia. She talked to me about this site few days ago and we had decided to go there to make some pictures of the Milky way.

There is no sand on this beach, only stones and maybe someone, one day, began to stack these to make "cairns". We don't know if it's the same person who has continued or others, but now, there are many thousands. So, until the stars appeared we took some pictures of the sunset to warm up the hardware and Mystic Sunset is one of these.

The equipment used was a Pentax K-3 and a Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di-II LD (Model A16) lens.

But back to the image - the result is not perfect when you shoot at F22, you have to clean your lens and sensor perfectly as is evident on the original picture direct from the raw (the punishment!): 

Before post processing

In post processing I have just cooled the colors and pushed the exposure, dark point and clarity slightly... and of course I had to clone out the dust. Nothing further was done in post.

To complete the story - after all I was out to shoot the stars: I created this panorama from 5 images taken that same evening:

I knew that my "Mystic Sunset" picture was quite pretty but I never thought that it was enough to win this contest! There were really so many pictures of high quality submitted by others members.

Thanks all,

-Bruno