The Church

[scorpio_e]

What do you think?
This one is bigger than the first.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2470/3977788843_dbdf04e534_o.jpg

[kat]

Very cool! I like it!

[Mad Aussie]

I'm thinking it looks stunning but it's too small for me to make serious comment on I'm afraid. I'd like to see it in about 800px on the long side.

[AntZ]

From what I can see of it at this side it looks impressive. The lighting on the church and the backgound and the clouds set a nice mood. The composition is good. I find the foreground light/shadow from the tree a little distracting for some reason.

[kat]

I definitely get that feeling of motion with the clouds. Was it windy/breezy? The leaves have a bit of blur but for me..add to it. love the colors..and don't mind the shadows in the front..add to an eerie feel. I think the only I can say I would want different is to me the whole building doesn't look in focus (the top being out of focus). But then again..just had 4 beer :p

[Mad Aussie]

Oh that's much better to view now!

I agree with Kat that the steeple isn't as sharp as the building itself which is a shame really. It appears you focused a bit too close to camera as you great sharpness right up front but have none further back at the distance the steeple itself is.

I also enjoy the feeling of movement in both the clouds and tree leaves.

The framing of the tree at the top of the frame is a nice touch also. I'm biased though as I use that a bit myself.

There appears to be a little bit of noise in the clouds I think. Maybe a longer exposure on a lower ISO would have been better?

I don't think the manhole really adds anything to this shot so I'd have cropped that out myself too.

Composition wise I think a small improvement might have been made by including more of the tree on the left of the shot, which in turn would have moved the steeple further to the right of frame.

[casil403]

MA's comments pretty much nailed it for me...Nometheless it's still a great shot!

[Marko]

Nice shot - very striking and might even work for the October assignment, and Yup - very good critique by MA.

[Iguanasan]

Phenomenal lighting on this one. Wonderful photo. I'm glad I didn't see the small one as I think this one needs to be large to provide the impact which it certainly does.

[JAS_Photo]

What M.A. said, except I like the manhole cover. :) Very dramatic photo and is excellent for the 'scary' theme this month!

[scorpio_e]

It was a difficult shot. I used three exposures and combined in HDR. As noted, there is some noise especially in the clouds and it was due to the HDR process. I think the moving clouds created the extra noise in the processing.

It shot as ISO 400..I really should have used 100 since I was on a tripod anyway BUT there were moving cars coming at me so the faster shutter speed helped *LOL*

The really odd part is the steeple being unsharp. The F stop was F5. I probably should have use F11. I am wondering if the unsharpness was due to the mirror?

Thanks for everyone taking time to comment and the critiques:)