@afre, thanks for the informative reply. I’ve been doing some experimenting, the Canon EF-S 10-18 is a lot sharper at f/11, than it is at f/20. So perhaps my shooting the scene at f/20 caused it to be somewhat soft.
I’ve also since learned how to zoom in using the live view, so I can get a focus lock on for example the distant lights on the horizon.
Pat Davids tutorial on faking ND Filters by stacking images certainly looks useful. At the moment my wallet is in such a state I cannot afford a 10 stop ND filter, so I may try doing the same technique which Pat discusses in the article for future long exposures!
That’s lenstip site is very useful resource, Adlatus, thanks for sharing.
Hyperfocal distance is something I haven’t really understood. The only problem with shooting at f/5.6 would be to get a slow enough shutter speed to get the “milky water” effect. however the @patdavid article may be a way around that, blending several short exposures to get the equivalent of a long exposure. Something to play with!
I think I may be best revisiting the location sometime soon and reshoot the scene
and far beyond causes the profussely tested, realistic and well documented kaneda effect … with the soundtrack and all I can hear the universe vortexing around HIRAM’s toni, split toni
As I said above, this photo is fine even though there is room for improvement. (@Brian_Innes Can’t wait for Hawkcraig Pier part 2, when you get the chance!) The main problem that I had was a lack of inspiration in terms of post-processing, so I just tried a bunch of things. Feedback appreciated on what else I could do.
PhotoFlow
a) wb (shade), exposure (0-3, blend), hot pixels + lens corrections, aces linear (clip negative values)
b) tone mapping (filmic), crop (φ, gcd=8)
enfuse 0-3
gmic
a) clip negative values, apply gamma, separate L and CH
b) denoise (guided filter), redistribute values, denoise again, combine L and CH
c) edit (forgot to list) clipped top 10% to increase saturation
d) prep for your viewing pleasure
@elGordo, the pier was constructed in the 1850s, when a ferry used to run between Aberdour, Fife & Leith, Edinburgh. Once the railway opened in Aberdour, the ferry ceased operation in 1890. More info here:
@Kane_Davis Were you going to post something? Maybe you discovered something new and are working on it , but I can’t wait to see what you come up with. For me, it often takes multiple tries to get it right!
Here is another attempt by me . Basically, it takes the first two steps of my original take and redoes step 3 to give a less faux-HDR appearance. The new step 3:
gmic
a) Since I had trouble with LCH manipulation, I decided to duplicate the base image and treat one copy in favor of lightness and the other color using curves, and then combine them.
b) Same denoise and redistribution, only this time with more care and denoise only once.
c) No clipping this time.
d) Prep: sharpening prior to resizing turned out to be more effective than the other way around.
I can hear the universe vortexing around HIRAM’s toni, split toni 
Anyway, great video 
.