POAS Volcano Natioanl Park, Costa Rica

[sury]

It was a cloudy day, with mid-day clouds coming in fast and the crater disappearing in the clouds (after all it is
cloud forest ). Tried HDR. Poas Crater and the long dormant Botos Lagoon, water filled crater.




Laguna Botos. This one surprised me, albeit pleasantly. Given the gloomy day, I did not expect this one turn out as vibrant as it did. Between, A900, CZ24-70, Luminance HDR and LR5, I was just a biomechanism that clicked the shots.

[Kalainen]

I like the second shot especially. Like you said, very vibrant, and for me it does look pretty exotic with an interesting color in lake. Having a bit of blue in the sky fills in the colors for me. Did you go down to shore? I would love to see how did the lake look from there..

-Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[Birma]

Spectacular shots Sury. Number one for me. With all of the smoke / steam blowing out of the volcano, and the mysterious lagoon it looks other-worldy - contrasting nicely with the flowers and plants in the foreground. Great stuff

[Dusty]

I really like #2, Sury, but it looks a bit over-processed and artificial. Maybe it's just me.

Dusty

[sury]

Dusty,
I was trying to match what I saw there. Since it was cloudy I shot in RAW.
I converted to jpeg with camera settings and then did an HDR using Luminance
HDR and slightly tweaked in LR5. Perhaps, something is lost in translation.
Luminance HDR did a very good job of extracting data from relevant
brackets. The lush vegetation is all there. I did tweak a tad in LR, mostly the clarity
slider.
It was a 5 bracket shot on a cloud covered day (but still relatively bright).
Never the less, Let me check the version before LR at home. You think too much green?
Thank you for the suggestion, never the less.


Sury

[Cogito]

Agree with Dusty regarding #2 - perhaps a bit too much HDR. But #1 is excellent.

[sury]

Thank you Tony. I will revisit the PP on the second one.

Sury

[sury]

Dusty, Tony,
How about this version?

[url=https://flic.kr/p/oJqYot]

[Kalainen]

Defineatly more natural looking, but doesn't have same drama if you ask me. Not easy to have both!

-Toni

--
Toni Ahvenainen (1976)
Year of the Alpha - 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: http://www.yearofthealpha.com
Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/109262328@N06/

[sury]

Agreed. But I am having best of both worlds. I have the memories from the trip
and a wiser view on how to view things thanks to all the comments.

with best regards,
Sury

[bakubo]

I would live to visit there someday!

[Dusty]

Yes, better. It may just be that the stacking in HDR causes fine detail to be lost.

Dusty

[sury]

Henry,
It is a fabulous place to visit. You must have or at the least adopt a temporary
mind set of time is not measured by your atomic clock. When they say it takes
two hours to drive from point A to point B, trust me it takes two hours. That is independent
of distance. It could be 6 KM or 60KM.

Dusty, Thank you. I want to see your point of view. What details
you were looking at? That way in the future, I can perhaps examine my
shots with a bit more critical eye.
Could you point me to one or two areas where the details are lost?

[the_hefay]

Sury, both versions look fine to me. The only thing about the first one that seems off to me are the shadow areas in the upper half of the hill/ridge beyond the lake.

[sury]

Thank you Jeff. If I may ask, what is off in the shadows? I am blown away by the
keen sense of observation on the forum and am desperately trying to catch up.

Sury