Foggy Sunset
When I was on Read Island a couple of weeks ago it was in the middle of a long week of dense fog on this coast. Read Island was at the edge of the worst of it, coming in and out of the fog a few times a day. I got this shot from the dock below the boat shed that I captured with star trails of the week before. I made it with three brackets processed with HDR software to get the most out of the fog, sun and water. I could probably have got a similar result with a lot of fiddling around with just a single image, but this was easier, and also more certain as getting just the right exposure to work from can be tricky in this kind of situation.
About the time I was processing the image I also finally got around to downloading the remainder of the Topaz software that I won in a competition several weeks earlier. In that package was Topaz Star Effects, something that I had not previously downloaded as it did not seem very useful for my kind of photography. Even so, I gave it a try by applying it to the top image, and below is the result. It’s OK, but not necessary and does not bring enough extra to this shot to be worth it. I can see it being fun with Christmas lights, or similar, if conditions prevent getting these effects in-camera (and a cliché is appropriate, which is often the case at Christmas).
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Canon 5Dii, Canon 50mm/f1.4 lens, ISO100, f5, 1/2000th +/- 1.5 E.V.
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burnt embers 
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Absolutely lovely and totally ethereal!! Just wonderful!!
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Thanks Toad! Glad you like it. HDR was a very useful tool in the lighting conditions that prevailed here.
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It’s a beautiful shot but I think the star-effect is not really needed. When they happen in-camera they can be really impressive. If you want a star-effect there is an option available in Photoshop anyway – but I don’t think your use that?
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Hi Andy. I agree – this is not needed at all in this photo. But fun to experiment. In-camera star effects can be really good, but as far as I can tell they require that the aperture be closed down quite a long way, and thus sometimes I can see wanting to add some star effects to an image with a shallow depth of field. I don’t use Photoshop, I have Elements but have not experimented with it yet. Time!
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I like no1 but hummmm no2 enough said; otherwise you could come over here and shoot me 🙂
David.
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I like this shot a lot, but without the star effect. I purchased this plug-in a while back based on the high quality of the other Topaz plug-ins but have not been satisfied with it. I might not be using it properly but I worked quite a bit with it but not to my satisfaction. I’m interested in your feelings about it.
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Hi Ken, I only tried it on a couple of images, mostly on this one. So not the best testing environment. This image does not need a star effect anyway. I tried one of the water effects, but this was not the right image for that either.
I quite like it when I get a natural star effect from the lens, like on this shot http://wp.me/p1R4lY-aT which is only enhanced a tiny bit with some contrast adjustments. I have fooled around with a star filter on the camera a bit, but never much liked those results, again not using it in the right situation.
I suspect with the right image, this software could be an interesting tool. I should try it on some shots of Christmas lights and see how that looks, or the right kind of sparkly water. I suspect that there could be some good uses for it where it is kept looking natural, or even where there are not any rays to the stars, but things are highlighted – such as to make a dull water surface a bit more sparkly. It could work well for some on-stage shots of bands – a bright spot on an instrument, that kind of thing. I expect I will try it some more, but I won’t be rushing to use it like I do have been some of the other Topaz plugins of late.
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Agree – the shot without the star effect is more “affecting” to me as well. 🙂
The colors in this shot are amazing.
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Thanks Sam. It was one of those evenings, great colours, interesting light because of the fog.
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I assume its an entirely artificial effect?
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Hi Val, entirely artificial. Many different settings and controls over the intensity of the rays, number, placement, length and so on. Also on the kinds of light that is picked up – for instance I could have chosen similar effects for all the highlights on the water surface.
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