Reflecting...

[iamjanco]

Critique is gladly welcome, but what I'm looking for here is advice.  A little background first:

My brother owns a fairly high-end swimming pool construction company which specializes in everything from residential and commercial pools and spas, to waterparks and their special features. We recently did some night work together in which the main goal was to capture a combination firepit/waterfall special feature while ensuring the lighting effects were also suitably captured. The lighting itself is led, and really does not become noticeable until after sunset.

The other criteria is that the picture can't be overly manipulated PP, as he'd like to enter a national swimming pool contest which places strict restrictions on such.

Conditions at the time of shooting were stormy/windy, which didn't help much with the fire. Additionally, the longer exposure needed at the time of shooting also resulted in detail burnout in the central portions of the fires, and I'm wondering if I could have somehow avoided that using exposure stacking.

Shot with a D810 & 16-35mm/f4:

[Bjørn Rørslett]

You should at the very minimum assign a proper colour profile to ensure the image is displayed properly. That might also help preserve colour fidelity and prevent changes in the blue and red hues.

Another tip is concentrating the framed view considerably. The background with sky and branches does little to the image and can be left out, unless there is a compelling reason why these should be included. Try work with the geometry of the image so lines don't diverge. Reflections in the water should be dead straight below the light source to look realistic (in my opinion).

Perhaps the entire scene could be captured with a longer lens in order to alleviate some of the issues addressed above.

Another entirely unrelated take would be to use a UW camera and move in quite close to get the scene half under, half above the water surface. Now, that certainly would make the pool image different from the main stream.

[elsa hoffmann]

difficult as one cant see the entire "picture" of the scene.
I agree with Bjørn that an image photographed from water level at least will give a totally different perspective.
And colour correction too.
I would defnitely take various exposures and blend.
Adding more of the pool/water I think is important - as it is about the pool and water feature. in my opinion this photo is only about the water feature.

oh ye - and if you are able to add light with flashes in the water too - light up the pool from inside -

[iamjanco]

Thanks, Bjørn, Elsa.

The image was of course shot from a tripod and leveled to help keep the lines straight in the brickwork, given the lens in use. A longer lens might have helped and I could have rented one, but timing and clutter were working against me.  As for the color of the water as it was at the time, it's fairly true, as there were also leds on the opposite side of pool that were fluctuating between blue and green, the effect of which really shows up in the dark. Lastly, beyond keeping lines as straight as possible, I wasn't overly concerned with framing because I knew I would probably be using crops of any shots I took for prints that would be 8x10 inches in size.

Still, I never have calibrated the older monitor (EIZO CE240W) I'm using (I print very little), though Bjørn's comment has convinced me that maybe it's time to do so (and maybe even get a new monitor).

I've never considered myself a pro, but more a hobbyist, especially now as I've started to get back into photography again; and I do plan on slowly acquiring more of what I need, as my budget allows.

Following are jpgs of the raws as they came out of the camera, untouched, for context. Again, the blown highlights in the fires are my biggest concern here, and I would think stacking bracketed exposures might work best (if the weather behaves):

 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

You might be surprised what a good RAW converter can extract from your NEFs. Sometimes I though files were hopelessly blown, yet PhotoNinja was able to pull back most if not all details in the problem areas.

Of course, if you shoot jpg only, the battle is lost.

[iamjanco]

Thanks, Bjørn--I just requested a trial license for Photo Ninja. Until now, I've used Adobe raw.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Feel free to ask questions about Photoninja. There are many PN users here to help. The program has a learning curve that can be steep, it has a lot of quirks and the implied work flow is not optimised,  but at present there are few if any converters that can match or surpass PN when it comes to image quality. It also has the added benefits that it is very easy to build your own light profiles so can get the utmost colour accuracy.

It would be prudent to post such questions in the Post processing forum, not into this particular thread. This to make the insights easier accessible to the entire community here at NG.

[iamjanco]

It would be prudent to post such questions in the Post processing forum, not into this particular thread. This to make the insights easier accessible to the entire community here at NG.

Will do, thanks again!

[HCS]

Depending on what you want to achieve, adding flash to the mix may actually brighten up the scene (sorry for the pun). I believe there are quite a few interior/exterior photogs in the US who have blogs and books on the subject (Ashley Morrison comes to mind, though Irish (http://www.ashleymorrison.com/), but also Scott Hargis (http://www.scotthargisphoto.com/)) to get you from a nice picture to a great picture. Both without much post processing as with heavy processing.

I think some small flash units aimed at some of the "prize" items in the pool and direct environment will bring more value to the picture. That way, you could also reduce the long exposure.

Even though i don't find the burnt out center of the flames a bad thing.

I do concur with the remarks on geometry, make sure to shoot dead straight, otherwise stuff starts to converge/diverge and gives a strange look.

Just my 5c.

[iamjanco]

Depending on what you want to achieve, adding flash to the mix may actually brighten up the scene (sorry for the pun). I believe there are quite a few interior/exterior photogs in the US who have blogs and books on the subject (Ashley Morrison comes to mind, though Irish (http://www.ashleymorrison.com/), but also Scott Hargis (http://www.scotthargisphoto.com/)) to get you from a nice picture to a great picture. Both without much post processing as with heavy processing.

I think some small flash units aimed at some of the "prize" items in the pool and direct environment will bring more value to the picture. That way, you could also reduce the long exposure.

Even though i don't find the burnt out center of the flames a bad thing.

I do concur with the remarks on geometry, make sure to shoot dead straight, otherwise stuff starts to converge/diverge and gives a strange look.

Thanks for the additional suggestions, which I'll look into!  In the meantime, I'll start a new thread in a different subforum, if I've got any other questions.