Devils Tower

Thank your for your comments:-)

This is wonderfully framed. The added foreground really adds to this picture. Very nice DOF and overall shading, very pleasing to the eye.

Dave, I climbed this in my younger days. A buddy and I did a massive road trip from our home in western Montana and spent three days here, and climbed up it via two different routes. It was awesome. Your image brings back so many memories, and is just wonderful. Great light too. Cheers! Chris

Thanks Tony! It definitely took some work to get to this vantage point, but it was worth the effort;-)

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Chris, it's a great place isn't it! And you're a much braver man than I. You wouldn't get me on a ladder higher than six feet! Ha!

close encounter of a real kind. Light conpositin color well done. Did you used a polarized filter?

Thank you Pierre. Yes, I always have a polarizer on since I do mostly landscape. On this trip I was also in the habit of using a Cokin P-Series holder on the front of my wide-angle lens. And I almost always had two graduated ND filters, and one warming filter in the holder. Since I shoot RAW in standard mode (no in-camera processing) I use Photoshop Elements to do my post-processing adjustments on levels, shadows/highlights, color balance, etc. Also, I am finding out that each lens has it's own set of "sweet spots." That is, for each focal length there is a combination of focus point and f/stop that produces the best DOF overall. I don't believe the general "rule" anymore that high f/stops (f/22 or f/32) are the way to go. In fact, they often produce poor results because of diffraction (here's an article by Bob Atkins). At 36mm and f/13 this image was nearby the sweet spot;-)