Stirling Falls

[Octane]

Nature's majesty and grace at its finest.

I made this image in Milford Sound in Fiordland, New Zealand.

The subject here is Stirling Falls. At 161 metres, its the tallest constantly flowing fall in the fjord.

Single RAW for processed separately for luminance in growth, exposure of falls, sky and mountain.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105 f/4L IS USM
1/60s f/5.6 at 29.0mm iso400

Slightly higher resolution available here (http://users.tpg.com.au/octane2/sf.html).

Comments, critique, blah, blah, welcome.

H

[iceman]

Beautiful image, H. Stunning falls.
What a lovely spot.

[DeanoNZL]

H, you have a great eye for composing photos.
You must've had a blast when you were over "the ditch"

[Lumen Miner]

Hmmm.
This image puzzles me a tad.
You always ask for critique, so instead of my usual praise i'll attempt this one.

Let me say first of all, it could be my monitor but I think it is not.
Is this image a tad too saturated? I dig your usual selective lumination but, I'm getting a smack in the face from the saturation in this image.

Secondly, my brain is telling me even though it is a beautiful image, the lumination of the falls is next to impossible, unless there is a second sun behind us. Due to the angle of the falls and the sun cast on the hill, lumination should be much lower on the falls.

This is a beautiful scene and like I said it could be my monitor, yet all your other images look great on it.

By no means is this any improvement on your image, yet only an illustration of what I mean. When I personally see this scene I would imagine it to look like the edit. I believe it is substantial enough to hold it's own without the extra "PoP".

Please don't take any offence to the image, I will remove it on your request. I know you are the master, everything I have learned about landscape lumenescence has been from your images. This image just puzzles me a bit. :)

Great image by the way, those are spectacular falls.

[M54]

You should be working for National Geographic!
Stunning photo.

[troypiggo]

Great shot H. Do agree somewhat with Mitchell's comments about saturation.

Those falls were the ones where the boat noses under them and you can get sprayed? Remember that, but wasn't game to go out there. It was winter and very cold when we were there.

[Octane]

Mike,

Thanks! That place is paradise. Looking forward to going back soon.



Adrian,

Thanking you. I loved every second of it and, I'm going back twice this year. Can't wait!



Mitchell,

I appreciate the critique. I kind of knew this was coming, as after I had saved for web and uploaded it, I wasn't terribly happy. I know what needs to be done to fix it, too. In my defence, I processed this image after having spent all of yesterday working on wedding photos. Wedding images are nothing like landscapes, and, so when I started working on this, the colours were vibrant, vivid and deeply saturated and they looked great to my eyes after having spent 10 hours working on bland images (in comparison).

I will load it up again when I have the chance and re-work it. You're right about the luminance of the falls, too. I had a version where the falls were toned down by about 2/3rds of a stop. I think that will work better with the toned down greens. Will upload once I've reprocessed.

Thanks, mate. I like your version, too, by the way. I think something in between would work a treat.



Molly,

That would be a dream. If I work hard enough, maybe that dream might come true!

Thank you.



Troy,

I agree with your and Mitchell's critique. Will reprocess the image and tone it down a bit. At the moment it looks like it fell into an HDR hole.

And, yep, this is just that waterfall. In winter it would be unbearable -- the windchill is bad enough as it is.



Thanks guys, appreciate you looking and commenting.

H

[Lumen Miner]

No need to defend yourself mate. :) I know exactly what you mean about switching to landscapes after processing other types of images, I have lost my way several times. It often looks good, yet on second check later on, it seems my concept of correct saturation gets blurry, especially after a long day.

Definatley something inbetween, my edit lacks a bit of pop, would have liked to spend more time re-illuminating specific folage. My edit also lost some of the nice brown folage on the falls too.

[telecasterguru]

I still like the image and now I need a holiday. Might go and have a look.

Frank

[cookie8]

What! A sunny Milford Sound?! No wonder its so beautiful. I was there in 2008 but it poured. Great stunning image.:thumbsup:

[Octane]

Frank,

Go do it. You won't regret it. Especially if you get to go on a good day.



Vincent,

I know -- tell me about it. Both days that I went sailing on both the sounds, were picture postcard perfect weather. Most days it buckets down. Not a single drop of rain on both days. So happy!

Thanks!



Thanks so much for looking and commenting, guys. I feel that once I've sorted the colours out on this one it may be one of my best images to date.

H