Plover Cove Sunset

[Bernie Ng]

Hello there,

I have below some shots I took recently on a visit to Plover Cove Reservoir, in the north east of Hong Kong's hinterland. The shots are taken from the very long dam wall. Plover Cove, as the name suggests, was once a saltwater bay. However, in the 1970s, it was dammed, drained, and filled with fresh water. It holds rainwater and a small stream feeds it. However, it is also filled in part with water pumped from the Mainland.

Happy to give you a full tour if interested - let me know.

However, here are the photos:

I had a lot of difficulty with this shot. I was hoping to balance foreground interest (the swirling patterns on the pavement, and the pedal bike) against the background (the sunset). The sunset was very bright; the foreground was very dark. The camera either gave credit to the foreground, which made the sunset look washed out, or gave credit to the background, which meant the bike was dark and unappealing. This was the best compromise I could find. Is this the sort of moment where a neutral density filter would help? Interested to hear your thoughts.

I am wondering whether putting some grass in the foreground helps give perspective, or do you find that merely distracting? Would it have been more interesting if I had focussed on the grass (so the sunset becomes a blur) or I had focussed to infinity (so the grass becomes a blur)?

Finally, two more standard shots so you can appreciate the sunset and nothing else:

Cheers,
Bernie

 

[karlo reyes]

hi bernie

i love sunsets here! #4 must be the best for this set. the usual CC i do find 1-3 a bit underexposed and noisy. the saturation on the reds is a bit high for my taste and the grass as foreground shouldn't be covering half of the frame.

mcuh respect,
karlo

 

[Jim Kernicky]

#1 - yes, an ND would help here, or try some bracketing - the bike is hardly visible
#2 - I like this one the best - to me having multiple levels to a photo helps - foreground, middle ground and back ground - and even levels between
#3 & #4 - both remind me of a pic I took on the bay where the sunset was amazing but I had no real subject - just imagine if you had a sailboat in the water or a dock.

 

[Bernie Ng]

Thanks Karlo and Jim for your helpful comments.

Karlo - the noise is due to two things. I am shooting with a G10 which tends to be quite noisy, especially in low-light conditions. I also bumped up the saturation slightly for some of the shots - but on iPhoto, so presumably that also created an additional layer of noise. Feedback taken on this. Shot 3 is underexposed - though it looks better on my home Mac then the PC I am currently on now.

I am loving these HK summer sunsets as the we get southerly winds and visibility is much better. During autumn and winter the weather is much more tolerable but good shooting days are far and few between.

Jim - thanks for the tips; I will have to look at how bracketing works (I am no more than a real beginner - I know what bracketing is but have to learn how to actually do it!). I agree that shots 3/4 lack a point of interest. I was desperate to find something, but the bay was just deserted that day. I could have some boats in front of me from another spot, but I have recently done a shot just like that and was interested in a different angle. Here's a shot with a sailboat included - it was not there for long!

The sun was higher up at the time and behind some thin wisps of cloud, so it looked a bit mis-shaped.