Amateur Hour

The sun on view is exposed for nicely. A pleasant shot, those waves at the bottom adding a significant amount of interest to this pretty scene.

Hey, pretty dang good considering you don't shoot these things! I really like the comp, simple but well put together with the clouds, sun, waves and sky. Incredibly well exposed I would say, and the processing looks good to me. Looks like you've got some red blotch lens flare going on, but the untrained eye probably wouldn't even notice it, and for a non-blended shot I think its perfectly acceptable. Great job here....maybe you should try landscapes more often!

I think you did fine with this, Terry. The off-center sun and the textured waves all work nicely here.

If anyone has tips on how they would have handled this, I'd be interested. Like I said, I'm pretty clueless with landscape shooting in general.

Someone mentioned a "blended" shot...is that something where you shoot at two different exposures or something, for the foreground and the sky, and then combine? Do you typically use a graduated filter or something when shooting something like this? I'd just like to be a little better prepared the next time a situation like this presents itself.

Terry, you are correct that blended shots combine multiple exposures of the same composition so that all parts of the image are properly exposed. You can do it with two shots using basic masks in photoshop (here is the tutorial I recommend for that: http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/neutral-density/neutral-density.htm), which is similar to using a graduated neutral density filter, however, I personally have no experience using those. Or you can use Tony Kuyper's tutorial for blending exposures using luminosity masks (look for the link under his signature) which requires using three exposures. If you haven't seen them, Tony's tutorials are useful for all types of photography, not necessarily just landscape. Hope that helps!

Very nicely done for someone who doesn't shoot landscapes. The exposure looks spot on and I like the off centered comp. You will have to try these more often, Terry.

Ed

A classically captured ocean scene. Nice exposure here.