Montana, Glacier National Park, The Sun Road (east), Sunset

What I like:

—The layers, grass-to-forest-to-mountains and sky;

—Fine quality of light across the peaks.

What I don't like:

—The bluish color-cast in the mountain shadows (White Balance problem?);

—The flatness of tones overall, and in the dark forest especially;

—The inclusion of "too much" sky (alway a subjective choice for us, isn't it?), when that element isn't providing a great "Wow" factor;

—Lastly, the light hitting the mountains on the left and right edges of the frame, with only a small section of each visible, pulls my attention in two directions at once and is annoying...a change in the composition, one way or the other, "might" have eliminated this, and also provided more of the rich direct light in the scene.

With different post processing this should still be a shot you'll remember from a wonderful place.

First: almost any image of Glacier National Park is going to catch my interest because this is one of my top favorite places on earth! I love the flow in the image from the green grass in the foregroundto the purple-pink and blue of the mountains. The composition really works well for this type image. Having spent considerable time in Glacier, I am all too aware of the difficulty of correctly exposing images well. Depending upon the time of day and season, the light can range from beautiful to horrific and in almost any season, the light can vary greatly from the nearby mountains to the land below. Then there's the issue of the Montana skies and the almost surreal blue found there. In this image, you were dealing with a cloudy sky and filtered sunlight hitting the mountains and ground in different ways. The mountains look clouded and flat while the foreground seems a bit darker than you might wish.

When photographing similar scenes, I've found a few things that help me: first, close down your lens to the smallest aperture possible. In this case, I would have selected an aperture of at least f22 in order to ensure sharpness across the entire frame. Another thing that has helped me, is to take two different exposures - one correct for the mountains an sky and the second for the foreground. I then combine these images in PS. The problem here is that the exposure values for the mountains and sky are different than those for the grassy areas and nearby trees.  I also use a polarizing filter to hopefully deal with the dusky look of the mountains. Finally, I might try a variety of white balance settings in order to elminate the slight blue overcast to the image.

Nice composition and I liked the green grass and the warm sunlight.  Getting such dynamic range in one shot is challenging.  I believe HDR would have worked well in this scenario.  Good shot though.

Regards,

Divya

I disagree with Irene re your f-stop choice and I disagree with both Irene and Divya re the usage of HDR.  I'm guessing that the sweet spot of your lens at 200mm is around f/8, and so your use of f/11 seems appropriate.  Likely f/4 or f/5.6 would've been fine at this distance to the mountain (which is basically infinite).  Irene's suggestion of f/22 is inappropriate in this situation as there is no foreground (and therefore no need for large DOF); indeed, one may lose sharpness due to diffraction.  HDR is unnecessary here too.  A simple ND grad would've worked and saved time of blending photos & such.  As for the composition, I like the light on the mountains but I don't care for the inclusion of so much grass.  So, if the 200mm is the longest you have, I guess walking to the base of the treed foothills on the right would have been your only option for potentially improving this composition?  Regards, Jeff 

Hi Ya,

First, congratulations on capturing a dramatic slice of nature with wonderful light.  On the comments, I side with Jeff.  I would not mess with HDR.  To me your aperture is fine.  My preference would be to crop the bottom.  I also added a warming filter to the grass and sharpened the image with luminosity sharpening.  It's easy to envy your escapades at all of the western national parks. It's always nice to view your images, Ya. Larry

Jeff - I did not suggest using HDR to improve the image. Frankly, I suspect HDR processing would ruin this type image because the difference in exposure values isn't that great. Having said that, I have to admit that viewing the image on my desktop monitor (I initially viewed it on a laptop) I do see your point about maintaining the same aperture value. Nonetheless, in similar situations I have relied on a wide DOF in order to keep all elements at their maximum sharpness. Personally, I like the green grass leading up to the mountains, but might have cropped it a bit more. As for the blue overcast - I find this very difficult to eliminate when shooting in Glacier and in similar environments. The mountains themselves are often shrouded in a gray-blue cast and then you add in environmental factors such as time of day, cloud conditions and so forth and getting rid of the cast is tough. I often use the polarizer in these type conditions and find it does help somewhat. Once again, overall, I like this image very much.

Ya, sorry to use your image as a forum, but...

Irene, you did suggest that two images of different exposure be combined into one image; that is HDR!   

Good insighful discussion here.  Thanks Jeff, Larry and Irene for sharing your point of view.  I guess, we all agree that ND filter and HDR are two methods of getting the two light conditions in same photograph.  It is also a personal preference to pick one or the other (Would like to know if there is a third method).  I have struggled with similar light conditions while shooting mountain landscapes and have not tried either of the two abovementioned methods yet but plan to try one or both next time I am shooting in these conditions.  People either like or hate HDR and I will make my opinion after I try. 

Ya, Thanks for sharing a good photograph.  It generated good interest and discussion.  

Regards,

Divya