Colour at South Stack Lighthouse

This is a shot I've been thinking about for a while now, the summer heather on Anglesey adds a new dimension to some locations and with the recent awful weather I was beginning to think that I'd miss the chance as it's not in full bloom very long.

This was taken yesterday whilst hiking the coastal path between Holyhead & Trearrdur Bay, if weather permits I'm planning a revisit nearer sunset.

BTW, this is my 1st real landscape shot with the K20D/Pentax 17-70.

Simon

[IMG]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e68/STKITCHIN/south_stack_lighthouse.jpg[/IMG]

Lovely shot Simon, it gives me "hiraeth". Is the lighthouse slightly out of focus? Where was it taken from - the old army firing range?

Congratulations also on the Trinity House Calendar competition.

Have you ever taken shots of the Skerries and of North Stack?

Howard

You are being a little unreasonable, I feel. There is enormous DOF in this picture, and it was more important to get the near foreground in good focus than the lighthouse.

G

Thanks both for the comments/feedback,

Howard, as George mentions, it was a bit of a struggle with the DOF - the lighthouse was quite a distance away so I had to use a focal length of 50mm to try & bring it closer, this obviously made it even more difficult to achieve the sharp heather in the foreground so in the end I compromised with a slightly softer lighthouse.

I might be able to sharpen the lighthouse slightly with a bit of PP - I'll have a go

Simon

When you return, take a number of shots at different focus points then stack them later. You can get it all in focus.

The image shown above seems very dark to me. I'd prefer to see exposure or brightness turned up a bit.

I agree with your comments, George, that's why I asked Simon from where it was taken - I could not work it out exactly, and I did say "slightly". I appreciate that the lighthouse is a long way away. However, to repeat my comments - a lovely image of one of my favourite places.

Howard

Howard, I really meant that your expectations were a little unrealistic, not that you were being unreasonable.

Mea culpa.

G

Simon with respect, to me your images all look like thay have been processed in the same manner with a strange unnatural tint to 'em.

This is a nice shot, but it looks like there is a magenta colour cast over this image.

Could you just clarify - you say ALL my images, do you mean those on my website too ?

thanks

Simon

Simon

Lovely shot. It does look to have a slight magenta cast to it, but it could well be my monitor at work. I will have another look when I get home.

My thoughts exactly. Plus an unatural shift between foreground cliffs and distant.
Recently your images have looked fine but this one looks like it was taken 20 years ago, Like an old postcard.
We have had a discussion before about this and I thought maybe it was my monitor. I have a Mac now and I'm fairly certain the monitor is pretty flawless (although I haven't calibrated it yet )

Incidentally, I have noticed that this browser - Firefox 3 on Mac, does some strange things with some colours (GIFFs maybe (different colour palette?)). But that's not the cause here, as your image is the same on the PC

I was thinking the same thing... I think you might have gone a bit too far with the processing. Something a bit unnatural and almost HDRish about it. It's not a bad image, but I am comparing it to your usual very impressive standard.

I've checked the shot & there is a slight magenta cast to it, I've corrected it - here's the new version.

Processing wise I've not done much but I have just upgraded to CS4 and tried out the new gradient tool in ACR on this to add a bit more detail to the sky, perhaps the original post was a bit overdone, I've toned it down a little in this repost, I've also cropped the shot slightly on the right

Simon

[IMG]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e68/STKITCHIN/IMGP0535_nosharp.jpg[/IMG]

definite improvement but still looks unnatural, Over-saturated and still that odd haze between the cliffs like you increased the contrast on the distant cliffs but faded it out at the bottom.

Simon, its jus' the ones i've seen you post on here. They seem to have an unnatural look to 'em.
Otherwise, the shots and photography in general on your website is beautiful.