the visual journey - gallery ii Around the Corner

This photo utilizes the type of reflected light that can make the

blue/red so vibrant in all slot canyons, but here I went super-wide to

show off those knobby walls as well. They don't call it Spooky Gulch

for nothing. This two 30 second exposures at f/16 blended for depth

of field, one of which was double-processed from RAW to control the

highlights. All color comes from just minor adjustments in RAW.

You always have a wonderful depth or perspective Mark, among other qualities, of course! 

PDE

excellent color and mood. very impressive photo.

 Marc this is a great image even though I'm not really crazy about slot canyon images because they mostly look the same. I can see they would be a blast to shoot though.

This is one beautiful shot you have captured, there is so much to learn from you. Your immense efforts to obtain precisely what you want is most admirable outdoors and indoors as well.

Best

+Lalit

Marc, I'm curious to know if you are using Photoshop's "auto-align layers" move to blend your DOF slices. I'm not much into slot canyon shots either, but this one is very interesting.

Splendid light effect and walls details come to increase this image,complimens.

Mark, none of this is intended as a hint at a critique. If you read my comment on your gallery, you know that. I am simply curious. Few days ago read a 14mp digital photo-review of the new entry level Nikon. What caught my attention was that it ‘prints excellently at 30 by 20 inches’. For me, this is the proper minimal size of panoramic nature captures’ potential for your (and very much my) kind of subject matter material. A print this size and as presented (for me) is a tease and does not provide enough resolution to evaluate, appreciate and marvel (not beyond taunting imagery and recollection of similar large format material seen elsewhere). As I could not tell from your work as presented, wonder about this 'fusion' of layers of separate allegedly depth of field extending exposures and other neo-photographic blends and patches of digital art... upon what one is used to as fundamentally realism's back yard... – would This print well at 20x30?

Hi Igor,

The maximum print size achievable by any camera is always very subjective - left up to you to interpret, and it's different for everyone.  A print usually starts loosing discernible resolution once the print exceeds 300dpi or so across the whole spread at native resolution - so about 15inches or larger on the long side for a 14mp camera (4500pix divided by 300).  The loss in detail is very slight though, and with proper sharpening and a clean file to start with, you can go quite a bit larger before noticing much difference at close range.  At longer range, it's a whole different story.  If your file is in excellent shape and sharpened correctly, you can be standing 2ft away from a 20x30 print and not tell any detail has been lost with a file that was a native 14mp.  I've shown 12mp images at 40x60 in size and some people think those look excellent but I'm too much of a pixel-peeper to usually think that myself.  There's a very big loss of quality up close.  My point is though, your definition of 'excellent' can also vary.  Lastly, subject matters.  I find some subjects, like a rainforest scene, are just much more reliant on fine detail than others. 

This image right here would print excellently at 20x30.  The blending only helps.  Years ago, I might have had to shoot this at f/22, loosing even more detail and still risking some blurry edges.  I don't believe in throwing away an opportunity to capture something as sharp as possible though.

Excellent ! Congratulations.

mauro vacca

I think this is an excellent image, with beautiful details and colors.

I would thank you for providing us the technical details behind your photos: a great source of learning and inspiration! I'm very delighted by your photographic skills, the way you use your tools to build your vision. It doesn't matter if the result is near or far to the reality: photography is a art and it's a reproduction of the reality. Besides, an absolute reality doesn't exist: we can call it "common sense" but from the moment the reality is perceived with human senses, it is something subjective. Your photographic equipment is a mean to express your concept of reality and I enjoy your "vision" very much!

Kind regards, Alberto.

This is a wonderful image, Mark.  Thanks for the explanation of how it was taken.  Outstanding colors and mood.

Excellent !!

Very good work.  Actually I learned a lot from the comments above.  Best Regards,