most recent "Heading West"

I posted this angle back in April of 08. The road works well from this ridge as it winds it's way back up the opposite slopes. I have wanted to re-shoot this ever since, because the light was only average on that trip. This time the light show was so good it curled my toes. I am expecting a few pundits to claim this is over-saturated. I'm trying to keep myself in check during post-pro, so I only added 3 points in ACR and no more after that. Obviously, adding some contrast back into a flat RAW will also increase saturation, so when I did so, I changed the blend to luminosity to counter that. In fact, after ACR, I did all I could to hold the saturation to avoid posterization. My biggest move was to add some local contrast to the distant slopes, mainly to get the road to show more separation and make it more visible. The main challenge was the assembling of the pano. Five vertical frames were recorded, twice each at 2 seconds and then 6 seconds to handle dynamic range, both at F16. I blended each frame manually, flattened and then loaded into Photomerge. The main problem was that during the capture process, from the first exposures to the last, the light faded by about a stop and a half. The stitching software could not provide a clean seam, so I had to manually change the exposure of the last two frames. Despite my efforts, some minor manually cleaning was required along the seams. As well, I had to double process the center frames because the brightest areas had a blown channel. In the end, there is just a hint of posterization at the brightest highlights, but it is negligible. Unfortunately, I was so busy during the event, I didn't stop for even a moment to soak it in. I finally offered it a long sigh when the last of the colors were fading. The drive home was very satisfying as I listened to Douglas Trowbridge's "Songs Unspoken" solo piano CD. A very fitting genre of music to cap this day!! 

The Larger preview will offer much more detail. Thanks for offering any

topics of discussion!!!

Superb work,the composition and light are excellent,so are the colours,I am surprised you use photomerge,there are much more sophisticated stitching programmes like Arcfoft Panorama Maker and the Panorama Factory that are very good at stitching seammlesly  and blending the exposures.i shoot panoramas at dusk with 20 sec exposures up to 16 frames with no problems,again excellent work,top marks from me and regards

I have absolutely no problem with the saturation in the sky but for this pundit the distant hills seem like they could use either some more contrast or just some simple darkening.  It's my impression lately that landscape photographers are, in their quest to pull out every iota of detail from what typically would be shadowed areas, perhaps overdoing it a bit. I like the dark, too!  (There also seems to be some slight haloing just above the ridgeline.)

I know that the quest seems to be to record a scene exactly as your eye would but, like many HDR images, these efforts sometimes look "off." 

Well done Mark! This reminds me of some evening light shows I saw as a child living in SE Montana. My father would say, "You'd think we'd had a scorcher today with that sky!" But, that never happened. I didn't look to see where this was taken, but I sure would like to be there! For me, this photo is very well composed.

Can't wait to look at the rest of your work. I just got my first DSLR a few months back and am learning a lot from other PNETer's, absorbing hopefully 10% of their help and critiques!

Going to look at your other photos now.

Cheers :)

Thanks Harry, Dave and Michelle! Dave, I appreciate the candid impressions. In some ways I see your position and in some ways I am turning left of those ideologies. Firstly, I think it can look "off" because it varies from what we would typically expect in two dimensional form. As you imply, reproducing how our eyes see it may be an effort in futility, but it is going in the right direction compared to how a single exposure in film would have recorded it. I pretty much gave up on sunrises and sunsets when I shot film because it was so far off from what I remembered. When grads came, my outlook changed. When HDR came, it offered more possibilities. Still, most HDR appears bizarre compared to reality. That is why I blend by hand. There is perhaps a need for contrast in the distant hills, but once again, my eyes were witnessing a hazy veil of light that made any contrast fall off in the distance. Finally, I process for accurate prints, so in my eyes this probably is lacking some deepening below the horizon (I actually added more contrast for web viewing), but if I go to print with that same darkening, it will merge all the shadows to muddy brown/black, relinquishing any separation. I do appreciate the honest feedback. It is very useful and helps me shape and evolve my photography processes. One last thing, I will go back to the working file and re-visit my blending for haloes. Try as I might, that is still a challenge. Thanks so much!!

Thanks for the response Mark, I anticipated that you would respond intelligently to some mild critique and I am always interested in your thought process.  I would guess that my minor trepidation on this particular photo is rooted in several decades of visual tuning of what my brain, probably subconsciously, expects a 2-D print photograph to look like.  That is neither correct nor incorrect but it is perhaps a mental block that I need to recognize.  I would think that younger photo consumers might not have this issue. 

Anyway, let's rejoice in the coming spring and the banishment of dreary valley days for a few months ;-)  I'm headed to Carrizo in three weeks and then DVNP and the Mojave at the end of March.  I'll be passing through Arvin on the way to DV... I can't wait.

Very nice image Mark.  It is very well composed and the sky is beautiful.  I have no issues with the sky looking over-saturated.  The distant hills appear a little too bright IMO.  I wouldn't expect to see that much detail looking back towards the very bright sky.  I think toning down the distant hills would make this look a bit more natural.   This is just my opinion and I certainly can appreciate where you are coming from after reading the posts above.

Thanks Dave and Scott! I respect both of your opinions as well as respect both of your abilities in photography. I have modified the image based upon your recommendations. Mostly, I created a half curve for everything below the horizon which mostly darkened without adding contrast. Meanwhile, I have retained the original for printing. In truth, the for print version will be even brighter overall, but will look just right on paper. My experience is that applying a shadow/highlight adjustment before printing works best. The upload should be coming soon. Thanks again for helping me out!!

BTW, Dave, if you are passing through Arvin, give me a shout ahead of time and maybe we can catch up with each other for a quick shoot. Arvin will be past peak for wildflowers by April, but I can show you some other areas you might enjoy. Let me know!!

Indeed, this a remarkable landscape image and experienced a remarkable exposure set up, it is also comes with very effective DOF and shows amazing fine details all over the frame work, the moving clouded sky and its colors adding a great feel of quality to the composition here also.

Thank you for sharing it and wishing you all of the best.

Thank you Rashed, nice of you to stop by!!

Mark -  I can see why you created the pano - the sky is fantastic!  I'm wondering if the image might be more effective if the image was cut in half, to emphasize the road through the scene?  You may have a comp of this.  Anyway you look at it, sweet shot!

Harry

Thanks Harry! Yes, I composed several other images and I just finished working one up that brings the road in close. It was nearly dark when I finally turned off the camera. Soon to come!

The update looks great Mark.  It appears much more natural to my eye.

Yeah it does Scott! You know, when I first started blending, it was because I didn't care for the grad shadows across the mountains and tress and whatever else was above the horizon line. As I began blending, I realized that some shadow was necessary to make things blend. I know that even more so now. In fact, I actually believe that we see it that way because as we pan our eyes up towards the sky, things in the foreground begin to darken and as we pan back down, our eyes adjust and we see things more clearly. Still, I won't go back to grads because I can control this better with two or three exposures of my choice, not bound by a fixed grad of say 2 or 3 stops. I can go 6 stops if I want without loading filters. Thanks again for your help!

I'm with Scott, this looks a lot more natural, Mark.

Excellent panoramic Mark!  I love the curves taking the viewer off into the sunset!

SS

Thanks Dave, I appreciate the input!! let me know when you are rolling through Arvin!

Hey Steve, I didn't see your post while I was responding to Dave. This was taken on my Slik 80 dollar travel tripod and my homemade L bracket. It is a shoddy setup to say the least, but I have gotten by with it for some time. My L bracket only works for vertical setups, so I have to break everything down to switch back to horizontal. The trouble is, the ballhead does not have a level lock, so I have to fudge getting level with a spirit level while panning. My next tripod will most likely be a Flashpoint, but beyond that, a good ballhead can be over 200 dollars, so it may be another year or until this tripod breaks completely. Thanks again!

Excellent, innovative and sooo aesthetic due to well balanced shapes, textures and stunning lights and colors.

BR / Volker

Beautiful work! You have produced an image that looks very realistic to me; California sunsets are really amazing! I don't do many landscapes because the colors seem to get lost and I don't have the processing skills or even the programs to achieve the realistic coloring that you have done here. I need to learn much more on this area, but I love looking at your landscapes to inspire me! Thank you so much for sharing. :)

Ab-So-Lute-Lee breathtaking!!