Temple of Kukulkan

[albert]

I had to kill 300 tourists to get them out of the way of this shot taken at the Maya City of Chichen Itza in Mexico last week. I'm more of a fire from the hip photographer than a scientist so any comments welcome that could help improve my technique.
 
I've also never used any photo shop tools in my life on any of my photographs so if someone could recommend a free or cheap simple to use tool it would be appreciated. I've not even cropped or levelled out any of my shots.
 
Perhaps a few pine cones could enhance this one Doc? :norty:

[DrunkenZombiee]

Awesome shot!

Looks like you have a tiny bit of Barrel distortion on the shot which is very normal on the wider end of zoom range. Saying that It actually adds a pretty awesome perspective as it makes the top of the temple look really far away from the bottom corner to put emphasis on its size.

Might be worth setting a slightly longer exposure/higher ISO/wider aperture by a stop or two to lighten the temple a bit more, but I cant comment as I don't know what it looked like standing in front of it. If you have time take some test shots with different exposures and Aperture settings get it perfect. Also the aperture seems to be high as you have focus throughout the foreground which is what most people go for in landscapes. Being that far away from the temple it would be hard to isolate the foreground and background even if you have a very wide aperture I think you would be lucky to isolate both at f1.8 or f1.4 (which would not be sharp anyway).

The composure of the shot looks good but hard to tell when you are not there. Personally I would have gone for a bit more sky but its still very good!
Tuning the while balance and exposure is pretty much all I can think of in terms of the "science" of taking the shot. I would possibly crop the bottom off slightly to draw the eye to the top of the pyramid. As for post processing... Not my area but I am sure everyone else can give you hints on here. I am sure you can make this a really dramatic photo by playing with the saturation/colour gamuts.

The most awesome thing would have been to have a tripod set up with 1 shot taken every 2-5 seconds for 10-20 shots. If you were lucky you would have got the clouds moving overhead in almost a slide show which You could mike in a video or GIF =). Or long exposure with a tripod at 100 ISO and narrowest aperture which is still sharp for a long exposure with the clouds movement blurred and the temple in exact focus.

What camera/lens did you use?

Keep up the good snapping.

DZ.

[albert]

Thanks for the detailed reply DZ, appreciated.

The place where this is has a no Tripod policy as they charge a lot for pro photographers to go in.

It's actually not that big, maybe 40-50ft high, and I was about 30 m away, with a standard lens no zoom at all and 80 ASA as it was bright as hell that day.

I took about 50 photographs so one must be exposed right, just this looked ok to my untrained eye.

Let me check through you reply and check some stuff and get back to you. I can't even remember my camera model and the lens, that's how amateur I am!

Edit: Olympus E520 with a 14-42mm lens.

[DrunkenZombiee]

The place where this is has a no Tripod policy as they charge a lot for pro photographers to go in.

Thats a bit harsh in my view.. I would try and blag it with a Gorilla-pod wrapped around a tree.

No clue what cameras are capable of 80ISO/ASA most of the cannon APS-C and NIKON  APS-C have a minimum of 100 ISO (Mine included).