Ethereal Sunset
Magic Hour
Magic Hour
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Jul, 2014Views
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Awards
Zenith Award
Top Shot Award 22
Creative Winter Award
Curator's Selection
Staff Winter Selection 2015
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
Superb Composition
Outstanding Creativity
Peer Award
Great Find
Exceptional Contrast
Superior Skill
Top Ranks
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 20 rankTop 20 rank week 2Top 20 rank week 1
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This picture was captured at Northolt and Greenford Countryside Park in Greater London. This was a beautiful evening in spring and the sunset was absolutely magicalTime
There was no specific plan to shoot any pictures on this day, however, as a force of habit I have always carried my camera bag when going out on walks. It must have been around 5 pm when I had noticed the potential for a special shot, when I was on top of one of the three artificial hillocks at the Countryside park which is a huge tourist attraction. It was getting a little crowded at the top and made setting up the tripod virtually impossible. Therefore, I rushed down the hillock and used one of the lakes as a foreground to capture this image. I did not carry any Grad ND filters with me so I dialed down the exposure compensation by a full 2 stops to get the best colours in the sky, but got the foreground pretty dark. On hindsight, if I had taken the shot from atop the hillock, I may have ended up with plenty of houses in the scene which, perhaps, wouldn't have made this as specialLighting
Despite the magnificent hues in the sky on this glorious sunset day, I dialed down the exposure compensation by a full 2 stops to get the right tonality. I could have easily been tempted to shoot a bracketed exposure and merge them in post, but that may have flattened the contrasts. Sunsets like these come once in a while and being aware and being prepared is the keyEquipment
I may have used a Canon 1100D with it's kit lens of 18-55mm as it was captured sometime ago. The tripod is a Manfrotto 055XPROBInspiration
The magic of magical sunset was clearly a huge motivation. It was an evening not planned for photography but ended up capturing this image and a few others as nature can be extremely persuasiveEditing
The image was taken into to Adobe Camera Raw to remove distortions and punch up some contrasts.In my camera bag
My current kit list include a Canon 60D body, a 16-35mm f4 lens, a Tamron 55-200mm lens, a 100mm macro lens and the kit lens 18-55mm. Besides these, I have a Hoya 10 stop ND filter for long exposure photography. I also have a loupe that is extremely handy to verify focus and sharpness at the back of the screen, besides being extremely useful in bright daylight. I have a Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod with ball-head.Feedback
Scenes like this do not come about very often. Therefore being aware and being prepared is very crucial to take advantage of any surprises that nature can throw at you. More importantly, it will be useful if one could get some practice for just this situation, so there is sufficient knowledge and muscle memory to take advantage when the situation quickly when it presents itself as these situations usually do not last long.
