Aground

I work away from home during the week, in Brentford, and don't have much opportunity to 'play'. Having recently bought my new shiny pentax I have been desperately waiting for a chance to try it out.

These were taken after the sun had left the sky on the river just at the back of my hotel.

Nothing too inspiring but it gave me the chance to try the camera and tripod. All were taken with a K5iis and DA* 16-50. I used a 5 shot bracketing and merged the results in Protomatrix.

I'm still learning and paying so any comments are welcome.

A good beginning with your Pentax. All shots nicely framed. The light only really allows the last one to sing, and for that reason also the b&w shots are more successful than the top colour one, where the uninteresting buildings in the distance are lit rather than your main subject. As the days get longer, your working day will finish before the sun has disappeared

Second & third image are good mood setting images. A good lead in on the third but the iron work at the top distracts (IMO). The second shot is just well sorted in its framing and processing. First image under HDR? is too weak. The last shot has the flavour of HDR coming through.

Best regards

Third image works well for me although it looks a little soft at the back

like the last best, would be better without the flats/offices behind...

I do like them Ralph, but all they seem to be a little lacking in contrast to me. Increasing this would make them 'pop' a bit more.

Regards
David

I was thinking the same as David as I scrolled down and there we have it David beat me to it

Personally I like the fact that the first is not overpoweringly 'hdr'

I like the image content, especially the last one.

I like them, including the soft pastel tones

Thanks for all the comments.

CMW I see what you mean about the background buildings. This was my first 'real' attempt at a bracketed image and photomatrix. I need a bit more practice with those sliders.

K10D. I was in two minds about the overhead bridge but cropping it off didn't really produce a better balanced image. I felt 'with' slightly pipped 'without'.
I do like strong HDR images sometimes. In this case the natural light meant that three was very little colour in the overall scene and so I tried to reproduce a 'closer to actual' image whilst enhancing the colours a bit. Also I found that too strong a setting and the colours of the background 'lost' the boats in the overall image.

Fritzthedog. You are right about the background. As I stood there the wind picked up quite a bit and some of the exposures were close to 30 seconds. Even though my tripod is pretty robust I'm sure there would had been enough movement to take the edge off the sharpness.

Blueforever. I'll have a word with Brentford council and see if we can get the bulldozers in

David. Fair comment. I don't know if its the way I did it but they seem to have lost some contrast in the move from photomatrix to elements. I now have LR4 so I'll see if the same thing happens.

Stuey. Glad you like the minimal HDR. That was my aim.

Stan and Alan. I'm glad you like them.

I have been taking pictures for nearly 40 years and this is the first time I have even put any on display to incite comment. Thanks for being so gentle with me

I really like the Tyres shot. It has depth, the scene has character and is nicely framed with the bridge.

Not too keen on the HDR effects though. I don't think it adds anything to any of them.

I would brighten them all up and up the contrast. All look a little flat

Take 2







A few tweaks in LR4