Why neither of these quite works? In my defence, I was using a naff - but rather dinky - P&S held above my head. Constructive criticism gratefully accepted for these:







You might be able to see that I inexpertly cloned out the pylons in one of them. I already know about that. The "land bits" were deliberately darkened because I couldn't recover them from the noisy jpgs produced by the camera. If I'd had my 5DII and a tripod to hand, I might have gone down the HDR route.

Thanks.

Actually, I quite like the second one - contrast between the ground and sky looks dramatic, I would probably add some black border around the picture (matter of taste ofcourse).

Regarding the first one - imho the issue is that there's no main object to focus immediately, i.e. it's just messy

I think they work fine under the circumstances. In the first one I suppose I might have tried to lift the horizon to the 1/3 mark to get a better balance but the sky is the real subject so imho you could also go whole hog and just have the clouds.

I'm with Rokas on the second one. I think it does work. That's a very nice picture. The blue-grey / creamy yellow of the sky is a treat and the contrast with the ground is quite striking.

For me (it would be interesting to see if other people see this the same), there a two things that mean the first doesn't appeal as much. Firstly, I find that my eye is drawn to the big dark patch of sky in the top left corner - yet this is the least appealing part of the image. Secondly I think that towards the top of the picture the focus doesn't appear as sharp.

That said, considering they were taken with a compact - they're both pretty good.

To me it all seems quite messy, nothing to focus on or that draw my attention.
Sorry

I hope more people submit images to the critique section of the forums. I have learnt much from your very appreciated comments and input. Weather permitting, I hope to take account of your insights the next time there's this kind of sunset here.

I wish I could redo these with a 'real' camera, but the jpgs are really quite messy.