Sunset over the Boatyard

I was browsing through some of my older photographs today when I stumbled across this image taken at the Boatyard, Wells-Next-The-Sea in December 2013. At the time of taking it I didn't really feel as though it deserved a second look as the dynamic range between the foreground and the sky was just too great for the camera to capture all the detail within the scene. I exposed for the beautiful sunset but by doing so I lost all detail in the foreground (as I didn't have my filters with me to balance the exposure). Everything was in silhouette and as a result I didn't think there was any interest to the image at all. Or so I thought. The amazing thing with the new breed of Nikons is that they have such incredible dynamic range, and by shooting in RAW format, the camera had actually captured all the detail that I just couldn't see at first glance. Careful tweaking in Photoshop to the RAW file, lifting the shadows, adjusting the levels and a bit of dodging and burning has actually resulted in a half decent image, and it's just as I remember seeing the scene at the time. Just goes to show. You should never throw away any digital images, you just might discover a forgotten gem you never knew you had.   

Magnificent Sunset over Wells-Next-The-Sea, photographed with a Nikon D4

The unedited Raw shot

The unedited version clearly shows the under exposed foreground. I tried to brighten it a tad whilst taking the shot but any more and the sky would have been blown. As it turned out, the sky was blown slightly but easy to recover later in software, and by recovering the highlights in the sky the file revealed a gorgeous fiery orange colour. Normally when faced with such lighting conditions I would opt for a silhouette against the sky but the scene just didn't warrant it in this instance.

Looking at both images side by side, in many ways I prefer the original as the edited version looks a bit over the top. ( although I have to say the sky was indeed that amazing colour, the raw file just looks flat ) But this was just an exercise in how far I could push a file and recover lost detail without producing unwanted side effects like noise and hideous artefacts. It's fair to say, these modern cameras are pretty good.