Pink sunset over the bay around low tide

[dwaugh]

I went out the other evening in search of yet another sunset, this time at a different beach on the bay, and was rewarded with one of the better sunsets we've had in a while. I set up my first shot (first below) and then started to move faster as the sunset progressed, moving for different angles. The three below are in order, and I may have spent 10 minutes carefully composing the first, two on the second and maybe one for the third as I was losing light. I can't remember what combination of filters I used on the first. The other two I believe I had my graduated ND8 and 2 stacked, for ND10. Setting range, but I was at 100 ISO, F18 or more, and shooting accordingly, around 1-3 seconds.

The first seems bright to me in the foreground, but then again I was capturing the last of the light on the beach, less focused on the sky. It may benefit from another different edit if it seems worthy. The vignetting is also quite extreme from the filters. Personally my favorite is the second. To all of these I did minor curves and brightness/contrast adjustments. I did not enhance any color; in fact, one shot I reduced the red to make it appear more real, as the filtering made it appear more saturated than it truly had been.

Thanks for looking! All comments and critiques welcome.

[armando_m]

Well done

I prefer the third one, with all the detail on the sand topped by the colorful clouds

[Ridgetop]

I'm with Armando. Your overall exposure is pretty much dead on from what I can tell on #3. The sky is definitely well done and I like the detail in the sand. #1 has the sky a little overexposed in my opinion, but I like the composition.

[dwaugh]

Here's a link for the second one, to view it larger: http://i766.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps20c4b4f9.jpg

Thanks for the comments. The third is my second favorite. I think the second has the most interesting and varying detail in my opinion, where the third has a more open feel. I really like them both, they are just slightly different in style/tastes, perhaps. I agree about the bright sky on the first, but the sun was still half above the horizon, and it was quite bright out there... basically, I did my best before moving on to the other angles. Later photos from the first location had more color in the sky, but much less light on the beach, losing the better detail there. This was the in between photo, the best of both.

[hminx]

The second is my pick, but both the sun and horizon seem very central, have you thought of cropping some of the sky and left

[Mos]

I like the 3rd because the foreground does draw the eye to the sunset.