[Elisha]

(edit: Huh, it's not showing it on the post. Shot at f/22, 0.6sec exposure, ISO100)

It came out actually slightly blurry :| (I did sharpen in PP). I heard that can be a problem with this lens when you stop all the way down, but I was trying to do the longest exposure possible to smooth out the water (still hate how choppy it is on the left). I used a tripod+remote obviously. I plan on picking up a ND filter soon but I didn't have one for this shot (edit: I DID use a CPL). I'm about to go on a trip and plan on doing a bunch of landscapes there so I'm trying to practice before I leave.

Shot from the side the road over the railing on a bridge that crosses this lake :P

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Last edited by Elisha; 11-21-2014 at 10:40 AM.

[MSL]

A polarizing filter might have helped slow things down further and given some control over the colors (not that you need this), and you can fake an ND filter with a couple of polarizers. I mention this because good ND filters aren't cheap

As for the shot, I think you did great and even the small amount of choppiness is fine. I'd be very happy with this image, and even more so if I could achieve this with the kit lens.

[Elisha]

Oh, sorry, I DID use a CPL, forgot to mention.

And thank you very much!!! <3

[schnitzer79]

well certainly at f/22 diffraction starts showing. I was doing the same mistake when I first started until I invested in a couple of good quality ND filters(8 and 10 stop). Hoya and Haida NDs arent very expensive. Depends on the size.

[nomadkng]

I think a GRADAUTED ND filter would be a better application in this case and in most sunrise/sunset pics. Look into the Cokin filter system. It's some of the best investments in my photography I've made.

I'm surprised you could only get down to .6 seconds. Without seeing your histogram I can only speculate, but it looks more like a 2-3 sec at f16 scene to me.
Also did you use Mirror Lock up? was the tripod 100% secure? was it windy?,,, all of these can impart motion blur in your image that you might think is diffraction.

Other than that, it's a pretty decent image based on web resolution. I might crop a it differently to fit my personal tastes (too much empty space in upper part), but the composition is pretty good and the PP brought out a lot of colors. Given what you had to work with, it's a good image.

[Elisha]

Yep, I actually ordered a graduated ND filter specifically for sunsets. Aaaannnddd it's not going to get here before my trip, they took too long to ship it. :| So it looks like I'm going to get to buy one locally last-minute and have two, lol.

And nope, this is 0.6 seconds at f/22! I have one at 2.5 seconds at f/22 and it's CRAZY blown out. Like if you take the exposure 100% of the way down in camera RAW, 3/4 of the sky is solid or patchy blown-out white. I assumed 2.5s or so would be adequate (was playing around in manual/guessing) and saw it and was surprised and just kept inching my shutter speed up until I got one with an exposure I was happy with. Here's the histogram:



Mirror lock up = I don't think the K-r has this, it DOES have a 3s delay option which I could use (but didn't because I'm stupid and I was rushing and my remote was acting up >___< I think the battery is dying, gotta get a new one before I leave). Tripod was secure, it WAS a bit windy but that shouldn't affect things like the boats stacked on the dock (the ENTIRE image, even totally stable features, looked a bit blurry to me :|). It might've been a bit of camera shake, I'll try the delay next time.

+ It's actually not cropped at all - I was going by the rule of thirds (+had the divider lines on my live view) so peerrrrsonally I wouldn't want to crop any sky unless I could get 2/3 water, which I couldn't here because of the bridge railing ;P I might try a different angle sometime when I have the forethought to park at the actual park near the lake and walk down and poke around well BEFORE sunset, lol.

Thank you for the input!!!

edit: (And thank you, Mr. Bassie!!)

[Na Horuk]

I like the way you framed it and the colours! You followed the rule of thirds fairly well. Its a classic silhouette sunset landscape. You could spice it up if you had a more obvious foreground object, something that makes the photo seem more 3D, but this is a cherry on top and can only be done at wide angles. I think you did really well!
But as said earlier, f22 might be too much. You could probably get away with f8 and still have enough DoF, and much more detail in the photo.
For super sharp photos, what you need is tripod (stable, not swaying in the wind, not moved by people walking about), 2sec timer (and remote if you have one), ISO 100, and a good aperture (for landscapes you usually want above f5.6, so you get some DoF; but you also want less than f14 to avoid diffraction - ideally less than f10. But this also depends on the lens.)

[LensBeginner]

A polarizing filter might have helped slow things down further and given some control over the colors (not that you need this), and you can fake an ND filter with a couple of polarizers. I mention this because good ND filters aren't cheap

As for the shot, I think you did great and even the small amount of choppiness is fine. I'd be very happy with this image, and even more so if I could achieve this with the kit lens.

It's a good trick to have in the bag, but resulting IQ depends much on the brand and quality of polarizers used.
With the (cheap) ones I own, I get a visible blue shift after a certain degree of rotation of the second one, so I cannot get all the light reduction I'd like.
After a while, the frame just goes full blue and you lose the other two channels almost completely.
So yeah, there's actually no true substitute to a proper ND...

[Elisha]

Yeah, Na Horuk, I learned that lesson (diffraction) lol. This scene was just so bright, I guess, because of the sun/sun reflecting off the water that to get a slow enough shutter speed to smooth the water out at all (0.6 is as slow as I could get it), which is what I wanted to do, I had to let as little light in as possible. I would have preferred f/11 or so with a ND filter which is what I'm going to try to do in the future LensBeginner, that's good to know!!! Makes me feel better about my ND purchase decisions, haha. I only have one CPL.

Thanks everyone for the input again ^____^ Next time I'll def use the 3s delay in addition to getting NDs :P

edit: by the way, here is a test shot I snapped while I was fiddling around with my settings to show you the difference in the water at a faster shutter speed o.x this is why I wanted to slow it down lol. I much prefer the smooth milky look that a longer exposure gets (edit 2: flickr oversharpens a bit; I apologize)

[LensBeginner]

That second one is not a bad shot at all...
Composition is stronger in the first one, but you could also consider having two thirds lake and one third sky...