Setting sun at Whitley Bay

In Week notes #2 I shared an image of the setting sun lighting up the lighthouse and wind turbines at Whitley Bay, taken on the Fuji X100F.

I liked the photo, but mentioned having wanted a longer lens to frame closer on the lighthouse and wind turbines.

My brother made a similar comment: that he’d quite like a print of the image if the beach was cropped out, creating a super-panoramic frame.

I’d discounted cropping in any further because of resolution but he did make me think again and so, a little later, I made a copy in Lightroom and cropped in more to the kind of frame I’d have liked to shoot originally: losing the beach, but also a bit on the sides too to avoid too acute a ratio.

This much tighter crop simplifies and focuses the image hugely.

Now we’re left with the real points of interest: warm light from a setting sun off-camera left, dark clouds, a dark sea, with the white lighthouse and turbines picked out by the sun against that darker scene. The foreground waves can almost be hard rolling into shore.

Cropping in so much from a starting 24MP frame does leave me with a relatively small image resolution-wise. It’s still more than enough for sharing online and even actually for small prints.

When I get some time, I’d like to do some test prints to see how large I can push this file as it would be a nice one to hang on the wall.

I’ve also logged the image as one to try and re-shoot when the opportunity arises. It’ll almost certainly have to wait until the lockdown is over as the days are getting longer and I use my one exercise outing to get the kids out during the day. Something to look froward to, however!