Rocky Beach Sunset

[dwaugh]

I saw some awesome clouds this afternoon over town, and I hurried to the bay for the sunset, but to my disappointment by the time I arrived the clouds had mostly cleared from the majority of the sky. I changed focus and ended up with this. I was shooting at F22, long exposure with an ND8 filter with an overlayed graduated ND4. I would have preferred a stronger grad filter for the sky, but currently don't have any. Does anyone think this is too blown out? Or does it still work well enough? All other critiques welcome, too! And, yes, the horizon is level (I checked at close zoom, rotated/cropped).

[mattb]

I really like the composition and the colors but it is a shame how the sky blew out. I'll often underexpose a bit to avoid this and then bring up the shadows in post to compensate. The "poor man's ND grad". (not that PS is cheap)
If it were mine I'd probably be looking for an opportunity to reshoot, or to do some serious Photoshop cheating.

[hminx]

Have to agree with Matt, the blown out area detracts from a otherwise very nice image. I don't think there is any recoverable data in the blown out area so substituting a bit of sky in PS is probably your only option.

" Cheating " gee thats a tough call Matt....

[Brawlsy]

before i checked the caption i was about to mention the horizon line... were you using a wide angle? that could be the problem. i do think the image needs some correction to fix the perceived error. it does look a bit blown, but it does not seem to hinder the image too much, and i would crop even a little bit more from the top.
nice work

[ekonom]

Very nice photos, and good equipment

[pawn]

It looks great. I would have liked better if the sky was not blown out.