# Fire in the sky - again.



## DonaldG

Penestin, South Brittany, France.


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## Dori1960

ray: That shot is a wall hanger for sure! The light and shadows are perfect!!!


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## WereBo

It'd be worth getting it printed onto an acetate sheet or something, so it can be backlit then hung on a wall, it's just beautiful ray:


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## DonaldG

Thanks Dori & WB.

What I call 'Fire in the Sky' only happens once in a while. I was very fortunate to watch it develop. Even more fortunate to have the camera to hand to be able to capture it.


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## Dori1960

I hope you have this one a wall!


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## DonaldG

Until you both suggested it, I never actually thought of having it printed. I have a high quality printer (Epson R800, modified to take a 'continious ink supply' system but that only does up to A4.

I will give it some thought and maybe get it professionally printed.

Thanks for the idea.


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## Acuta73

I duck hunt....a lot. 

The boats in the foreground make me think of decoys in a very real way. If they were? I've seen that sunrise a few times over a few different marshes/lakes! (okay, scale issues aside...)

The luminescence of the clouds is just perfect, and amazing. In the right and appropriate use of the term: Awesome


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## Dori1960

DonaldG said:


> Until you both suggested it, I never actually thought of having it printed. I have a high quality printer (Epson R800, modified to take a 'continious ink supply' system but that only does up to A4.
> 
> I will give it some thought and maybe get it professionally printed.
> 
> Thanks for the idea.


Please do, that shot is very worthy ray:


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## bwsealirl

Stunning, excellent shot. It would look amazing back lit as werebo suggested.


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## Acuta73

A point SMLED layout, use resistors for "area light"....yeah, I could do that. Wouldn't be much different than lighting CG, only in 2D and in the real world.

Trick would be getting the variable light of the sun.

Would run til near eternity on a 12v battery. lol


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## Done_Fishin

all I can say is "WOW!!!!!!!!!" breathtaking ... wish I could have been there to share the moment ... ray: ...


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## zuluclayman

a great capture Donald - the sheer range of colours/tones in that sky is incredible as is the modelling it gives the clouds - love it!


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## DonaldG

Thanks for the comments, folks...

... Here are the companion images from the same time & place:


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## Done_Fishin

I can only repeat my former statement .. beautiful Donald, Beautiful .. gives us an idea of what can be done, what we can aim for!


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## WereBo

Yep









:grin:


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## DonaldG

Thanks for the kind words. The last image was pure luck - & that happens a lot in photography. 

For all the photographs I took of that sunset, I was sitting cramped up in the back of my French friends car. I was suffering from excessive walking and literally unable to get out of the car. I wound the window down and rested the camera on the window and captured about 10 images, the best two of which, I did some post processing to.

At the end, we drove away from the area and went past the yachts. Because I was 'tied in' with the seat belt and unable to move quick enough, I just pointed the camera out of the window 90 degrees from my position and fired off a shot, just on the off chance something might be OK. To my surprise, I had captured the last image, albeit at an angle, but a straightening in the cropping stage gave me a very pleasing result. As I say, pure luck! :grin:


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## zuluclayman

love the first of the latter two - almost expect the big hand to come down out of those clouds Donald
seriously though - the sky is an endless source of inspiration. I really love incipient storm skies, there's that sense of anticipation, nervousness and transition from light to dark - same when storms clear and the light changes - there's my philosophising for the moment :grin:


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## YTGeek

beautiful photo's you guy's have took! 

YourTravelingGeek ray:


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## Dori1960

Stunning shots!! ray:


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## yustr

Not quite as dramatic as Donald's, but a lot closer to home...:grin:


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## WereBo

Taken at Greenwich Park last week - The 1st pic is slightly blurred but I couldn't get the autofocus to focus sharp, I suspect the batteries were starting to fade but I didn't have time to change them out, before losing the sun itself.











After a battery-change, the sun had finally set, but the 'Silver Flash' was still shining. I can't quite decide whether it was a strange cloud-formation or a UFU in disguise.... :grin:


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## DonaldG

Well captured, WB. Thanks for keeping the thread alive.


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## yustr

One from this evening...working on a few others


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## WereBo

Now that is just beautiful! From the sky-colour to the rocks and weed detail to the slightly long exposure to 'cream' the sea, stunning ray:


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## zuluclayman

nice work there yustr - love the slow shutter speed's soft blurring of the waves & of course the sky. My only criticism would be to have cropped the little triangle of water you can see midway up/down the LHS of the image - distracts the eye a little for me.

here's one from a while ago - a lone paraglider at sunset over a local beach


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## yustr

Agree Zulu...cropped out. Also have to look into getting rid of the chromatic aberration in the rocks. I just liked the composition and wanted to share.


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## zuluclayman

Do you use Photoshop & the plug in Camera Raw? If so Camera Raw has some tools for fixing chromatic abberation. Even if the image is a jpeg, Camera Raw will open it and, while you don't have the width of image control you have over a RAW image, you can make some good adjustments to jpegs - I often work on jpegs in Camera Raw then finish them in Photoshop.

... and yes, it is a nice composition - I like the repetition in the shapes of the rocky points and the softness of the water against the hard edge of the horizon line.


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## yustr

Another couple from the same evening:


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## DonaldG

Those last two are stunners! The others above are great but these two have set the bar.

The tools in Camera Raw are invaluable expecially the Grad Filter that can be set at any angle. I use Photoshop Bridge as the photo explorer. Right click on the thumb-nail and select 'Open in camera raw'

I am in the process of enhancing 535 wedding photos and camera raw is more powerful & much quicker. I do the absolute final tweaks in Photoshop proper. (I have created many 'Actions' that cut time of 'post' down dramatically. When I get some time (ha ha!), I want to write a couple of tutorials on creating actions...

None the less - these 'Fires in the sky' are first class ray: ray: ray:


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## WereBo

Yep, what Donald said









I particularly like the veining and strata-layers in the rocks in the 2nd pic, but the rocks reflections in #1 are superb ray:


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## yustr

DonaldG said:


> Those last two are stunners! The others above are great but these two have set the bar.
> 
> Thank you - they're what I was trying for.
> 
> The tools in Camera Raw are invaluable expecially the Grad Filter that can be set at any angle. I use Photoshop Bridge as the photo explorer. Right click on the thumb-nail and select 'Open in camera raw'
> 
> I used CR for both of these. I actually opened two copies in CR and adjusted each for a portion of the scene - mostly used the Fill Light function to bring out the detail in the foreground and hue and saturation sliders to bring out the color and texture of the sky. Then imported both into PS as layers and used masks to combine.
> 
> More than one way to skin-the-cat.
> 
> I'll have to try the Grad Filter method.
> 
> 
> I am in the process of enhancing 535 wedding photos and camera raw is more powerful & much quicker. I do the absolute final tweaks in Photoshop proper. (I have created many 'Actions' that cut time of 'post' down dramatically. When I get some time (ha ha!), I want to write a couple of tutorials on creating actions...
> 
> None the less - these 'Fires in the sky' are first class ray: ray: ray:


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## yustr

One more - taken last spring


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## hiskywillkey

Very beautiful, very conception, the photographer is not general,


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## hiskywillkey

Photographer with a large aperture, slow shutter, technology is very good


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## hiskywillkey

hiskywillkey said:


> Photographer with a large aperture, slow shutter, technology is very good


 :beerchug:


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## WereBo

Another excellent pic yustr, I like the subtle way that the jetty and cloud-streaks both point to the same focal-point in the distance. The sunlit clouds are absolutely superb too ray:


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## Dori1960

Yustr, I love how you framed these to lead my eye into the scene!


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## mraccryu23614

Im jealous  Awesome pictures


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## Done_Fishin

Taken last weekend


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## Dori1960

The first one is a wall hanger! Very well done! Well framed!


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## DonaldG

Am accessing via my smart phone but the look great ST


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## WereBo

Totally beautiful, both of 'em! I particularly like the way you've composed the 1st pic, with the trees cutting the excess glare. The colours plus the balance of light and dark contrasts in the 2nd is out of this world ray:


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## Done_Fishin

Thanks I also follow Donalds advice about shooting at -2EV .. understanding the capabilities of my camera I know that I can't shoot straight without blowing the highlights so I tend to find something to allow me to get the scene and reduce the areas that might cause me problems.


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## DonaldG

WereBo said:


> ... with the trees cutting the excess glare. ...:


You are getting the right idea DF 

I needed to take a seascape from a location that faces right into the rising morning sun.

I used a fisheye and walked toward the tree until the sun was behind the fronds. It worked for me and the highlight was not burnt out and massive glare was avoided.









St Maws, Cornwall


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## Done_Fishin

Nice example & a beautiful photo Donald


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## WereBo




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## WereBo

I thought I'd recycle this old thread again, rather than let it get buried :grin:

Taken last Friday from the top-floor (4th) of my block....

A 3-shot pano of the scene....































This taken with the zoom maxed out....


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## zuluclayman

I like number 3 where the contrail has dissipated a bit and the sun's glow is more diffuse.

caption for 1 &2: 

"Hey Captain the Navman says to get over to the left lane and take a left at that building"
"Okay second, left it is"


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## WereBo

Hehehehe..... I was lucky with that cos from looking out my kitchen window and seeing the display, then grabbing my camera and legging it upstairs and snapping the pics, it was all finished in just under 10 minutes - Back to boring grey streaks then :grin:


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