Rising Sun

[Paul72]

This was a picture I recently took on my travels in China.
I wanted to silhouette the mountains against the sun to capture the surrounding area although I managed to do that I am not sure if its just another sunrise shot.Any feedback or comments would be appreciated.

[Mad Aussie]

Great colour ... really nice gradient in the sky.

The sun itself has a strange effect around it which is cool but I'm undecided if I like it.

I like the composition here though, and the detail we can still still in that lower left of the frame.

[Paul72]

Thanks Mad Aussie for your comments,I know what you mean I am bit undecided about the sun too though I like the rest of the picture.I did try to play around in Photoshop to make the sun more solid but then I thought it looked too unnatural.
This for me was a reminder of a mad moment I had in China on top of a mountain along with a couple hundred Chinese waiting for the sun.It was a experience I shall not forget in a hurry that's for sure and especially getting down off the mountain too but that's another story.Anyhow I thought maybe getting this printed but was not sure so its good to get a second opinion.
Thanks again

[Iguanasan]

Absolutely beautiful colour and the smoothness of it is wonderful. I'm guessing the strangeness around the sun is from a fairly wide aperture, I'm guessing that even though you were shooting into the sun the camera was on something like f5.6 or something. That also explains the smoothness of the background I think. What were the settings for this shot?

[Andrew]

I like the range of colours in the sky, the clould line looks too straight to be natural unless it's a chinook and my eye spends too much time on the pink ring under the sun wondering what you did to get that. Just a comment for composition,,, you know it's from China but it could be from your back yard. In travel shots I personally like to see something that I could relate to where you were without you telling me. In this case, a silhouette of a structure, boat, person, whatever, that takes me to China would have made a world of difference. I think the colour that's there would make a good candidate to blow-up for picture you could hang.

[Marko]

I like this shot but I feel it's missing something. The sky looks nice to me but there's a bit too much of it in my opinion. I think chopping off some sky from the top will give the image a more panoramic feel and add additional drama to the image....but that's just my personal take on it.
Andrew makes a very good point about the lack of identifiable location information.
Hope that helps - Marko

[Paul72]

Hello Iguanasan Andrew and Marko thanks for comments it is appreciated as always, good points being made for example making the place identifiable by having something in the image that informs the viewer of the place.Also I agree it would be nice to have something else going on the picture but in this case being on top of a mountain there's was not alot around apart from the surrounding scenery in the distance and the mass of Chinese next to me though I was hoping for more dramatic clouds.
In reply to your question about the settings Iguanasan the aperture was F8.0 and the shutter speed was 1/170 and the ISO 100.
Thanks again for your points they are very helpful and informative.