Magical Morning, Pioneer Basin

Picture perfect, well exposed.

Perfect to me in this category of images. Regards.

I'm just curious, did you use a graduated ND filter? To me, it seems like you did as the mountain tops are darker than their respective reflections. If you used one, congrats on lugging it around with you through the wilderness along with your other stuff.

Yes, I recently started strappin' my tripod to my backpack when I roam the wilderness. It's more weight than I care to carry, but I found myself wanting to better capture the beauty of the areas I visit. I use Provia when I know I'm gonna be taking handheld snapshots on the trail, and my tripod for lower light situations and when I shoot Velvia. I only carry two lenses, my 24-85 and a 70-200. I rarely use filters at all, mostly bare lens (that will probably change as I learn more), but I do bring a GND filter for situations like this where the sun is on the background peaks. I only had a 3-stop hard for this shot, but I just recently purchased a 2-stop hard, which I wish I could've tried on this same shot as well, it might have been more appropriate in this situation. I use the Singh-Ray GND's... I really like Galen Rowell's style of mixing wilderness adventure with photography and I buy my GND filters from his Mountain Light Photography store in Bishop, CA. I find myself falling more in love with photography with each trip. It's sorta like golf... most of my shots are really bad hooks and slices, but every once in a while you hit that great shot and you think you've got it nailed... until your next swing is another bad slice! AARRRGGGGHHHH!!! But it keeps ya swingin'!

Yup Buck I like both versions but this cropping just does it for me. good job!

Keep up the great work, Buck. Enjoy hiking and photography at the same time . . .

I see the cut variant! So it is better.

So much for the idea that good pictures can't be taken with zoom lenses. Makes me want to go backpacking.

This image is even better cropped into a panoramic format. Beautiful.

Wonderful shot. The composition and lighting are great.

I visited Galens gallery last October, 2003. You are walking in Galen's footsteps, but the images are your own. Your romance with this country could take you a long way. My favorite photographers are: Brian Ernst; Larry Carver, Dan Heller, Bob Reynolds and Don Paulson, not necessarly in any order.