"Maranjab"s Desert

Its a beautiful one.

The colors and composition are great -- this is a beautiful scene, a place that I wish I could visit and experience for myself.  The limitations of digital are evident in the abrupt tonal transitions in the vicinity of the sun (especially the outer orange ring); someday digital will be able to do as well as film in this regard.

Very beautiful composition. Very well balanced colors. Congrats.

great work. I like the tones and the composition. good job. congrats.

Stephen I'm looking at this on a professional calibrated NEC LCD and there are no tonal issues. It's a very clean image with no banding, abrupt or otherwise. As far as digital catching up with film in that regard, I don't think that sentiment is backed up by reality.

Brett, I see it all the time, even in prints and publications.  I can usually tell instantly whether a shot with the sun in the frame was taken with a digital or film camera.  It happens with my own Canon 1DsMk3.  I have two calibrated monitors, and I see it on both:  an orange band roughly three sun-diameters wide, wider on the left than on the right, and dipping behind the pointed dune on the right.

I'm not biased for or against digital shots that include the sun; I'm just pointing out something that I see regularly, even in my own shots.  Shots with film (my own or taken by others) don't have this characteristic.

There are some rare digital exceptions, and those always intrigue me:  how did they do it (get such a clean image with no relatively abrupt tonal changes)?