First light Photo | TrekEarth

Photographer’s Note

Taken very early one morning at a place called Paradise, not far from the hustle and bustle of Queenstown.

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Critiques | Translate

sam (897) 2002-11-19 17:28

Lush mountanous landsape + sheep = New Zealand. Very nice, well composed travel photo. The only problem I see is the extreme contrast of the scene. The mountains/sky are over-exposed, and the foreground is way under (at least on my monitor). The only solution would be a 2-3 stop ND filter, but this looks like a spontaneous shot where such a setup was not possible.

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adam (860) 2002-11-20 2:37

Really nicely composed shot. Perfect representation of New Zealand to me.

pimster (175) 2002-11-20 13:07

Nice shot. It has a 'travel catalogue' quality to it which makes you want to pick up the phone and book a trip to New Zealand.
Given the extreme contrast, I think you did a nice job of fitting it within the dynamic range of your camera. On my (LCD) monitor I can still see a lot of foreground details.

ronners (10) 2003-02-15 22:38

Really nice shot. As Sam says, you should pick up a grey graduated filter which helps greatly in balancing contrast in a scene like this. Alternatively, in photoshop (or whatever you use) create a brightness adjustment layer on top of the original image. Blank out the bottom half of the shot in the adjustment layer, and decrease the brightness in the remainder of the layer. This may be better since your camera may not take filters. If you post this to the workshop I'll try it and see how it works out.

[workshop] [compare]

ornis (1271) 2003-06-02 2:58

What I like here is the fact that it's not only just a beautiful landscape, but there is LIFE in it! I'm not worried by the extreme contrast (Ron did a fine job on that), because it enhances the reality of a daybreak in the mountains. It's simply a beautiful scene. I love it!

nmess (2289) 2003-06-12 19:41

This is a lovely view. I really like the composition of this picture, but like the others, the over exposed background really detracts from the overall quality. Perhaps a smaller apeture would have helped.

MissyMissile (0) 2004-01-30 5:35

Amazing shot, beautful colors, great composition. A little bit more sunlight would have been nice.

randompics (913) 2009-02-02 15:17

This is one scenery I expected to see when we traveled around South Island of NZ. But we weren't lucky enough to see it. The scenery is there of course but could not catch it along with the sheep.

Your shot is postcard perfect. And truly it is paradise.