Of course i use ND grad filters (as Michael does also), anybody into landscape photography at the moment has to. Its the only way you can even out the brightness in a scene.
As for the image with the sky a different colour - its simple - i got a bad colour cast (magenta) from my Cokin ND filter on that one, it happens sometimes and its virtually impossible to get rid of it.
Steve - everybody has a different opinion as to what has been manipulated and what hasn't, and i will still say it now, i do not use coloured filters (did try it a few years back) or anything else to colour my photo's. As my next batch of photo uploads will prove because they were taken in exactly the same way.
Rick, Andy, Jonno and everyone else who likes my photo's .. thanks, so long as there are people who enjoy them then i will carry on taking them :) And as for using one as a screensaver, sure i dont have a problem with that so long as they are not used for any other purpose.
Also if you would like to see bigger versions (better for screensavers) plus more of my photo's that have not appeared on OM as of yet then please e-mail me for a link.
I have only just seen this thread so let me explain ....
First of all i do not doctor my images!
The reddish colour is created naturally by the warmness of the sun just before it goes below the horizon.
Hamish was probably the first one to spot that the shadow that i think Frank is referring to is actually from the rocks not the beacon.
Remember that its sometimes hard to see detail in the darker/shadow area's when limited to such a small pixel size, you would see more detail in a larger version.
And yes the sun did set on the right hand side of the photo as can be seen by the brightness of the sky, i.e. Its brighter on the right.
The photo was taken on Saturday 3rd February, this year.
As you can imagine after taking this photo i had to walk nearly all of the way back down by torchlight! This was made more enjoyable by watching the very bright Evening Star twinkling away in the sky :)
Neil H
