Gonzales Erratic II
This is a reprise of my Gonzales Erratic post of a couple of days ago. I got some useful suggestions for improvement in the comments on that post (thanks everyone) and followed up on them as best I could with the edits in these versions.
These two images are ones that I ran through Photomatix again, using all its controls and then edited further in Lightroom. I tried another one using the Lightroom-Photomatix plug-in and merging a 32bit image (with no control of the Photomatix process) and then edited it in Lightroom, quite heavily. In the end I deleted that one from this post, it just was not as good as these, and not much better than the first set, if at all. For this pair, my preference leans towards the black and white.
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Canon 5D MkII, Nikkor-N 24mm/f2.8 lens, f 2.8, ISO400, 4 brackets, 1/200th, +2 EV, -2 and -4 EV.
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burnt embers 
I really enjoy the color version of this one, Ehpem, but have to say the black-and-white one is the winner in my books. Love the drama that it evokes and how all the terrific textures in the rocks and the surroundings come out. The trees on the far shore leaning a bit from years of wind from the ocean give a bit of tension here, too. Love it!
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Thanks Toad. The b&w does it for me too. I would like to have not ended up with those small halos around the trees and a bit on the sides of the rock, but I did work them out as best as I could, including a bit of editing after the tonemapping. WP has darkened it up a bit too, I did have it lighter over all.
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After looking at the previous post, I have to say that I prefer the B&W version presented here. I also prefer the B&W over the colour. Great job on post processing ehpem.
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Thank you David. I have taken steps forward in that department, and so far don’t feel too constrained with the Lightroom and Photomatix combination, at least not too often.
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Beautiful composition. I don’t mind the blue, it gives a sense of time. You may be right about the eye adjusting in the actual space and not the photograph. But are lovely.
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Thank you Ryan. I suspect different eyes/brains react differently. Probably artists that are often mixing colours have a very different view of things than I do. And maybe after a few more years of taking pictures and processing them, mine will be different too.
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I like the b&w better (you’re not surprised, are you?), and I like this version better than the earlier b&w – the additional highlights in the water plus the overall lightness give this one more detail, and therefore make it more interesting.
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Hi Melinda – thanks! I like these ones better too (though now that I look at it a half day later, I think maybe I should have lightened the houses up too), and am not surprised at all that you prefer the black and white, for some reason:)
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I like the houses the way they are: barely noticeable.
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After re-reading your comment from a couple days ago I agree, the blue is really an illusion, mostly reflected from the sky. But since blue is the predominate color, toning it down gives you the B&W since there is little other color. I think that’s why the black and white works so well on this. The pink in the sky is barely noticeable. Nice work on both.
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Thanks Ken. I wonder if the blue is an illusion, or if my brain/eye translates it into one. I can readily accept that there is loads of blue and that my brain wants to translate it into daylight colours. I think when I am out in the blue hour that is what my brain is doing. But, since it is what I ‘see’, I find that it is rather unnatural in a photo, which my brain does not try and translate. I think I see more in, and thus respond better to the black and white because I am not distracted by the blue, if that makes any sense
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