Lake Tahoe 001

I have always wondered if I should photoshop out the contrails. What do

you think?

The contrails don't bother me, but would be an easy fix. The only suggestion I will offer is to bump up the contrast a tad for greater definition - but that, too, is just opinion... A beautiful place... Mike

I agree with Michael. For such scenes you should use polarizing filter, it would add much in sky. But nice photo anyway, nice composition.

Cheers, Filip.

Thank you both for looking and taking the time to comment.

Michael I may just bump the contrast up a little more, maybe seven or eight percent. But, I would have to disagree with you Filip on the polarizing filter though. I find that it's use over about 5000 feet (about 1525 meters) in elevation begins turning the sky too dark in appearance(too short a scale between blue and black). The lake elevation of Lake Tahoe is around 6225 ft (1897 m).

But I am mostly interested in those contrails caused by jet exhaust. I find them rather unsightly myself, an un-natural look, and I am trying to gauge weather this is just a personal bias or felt by others as well.

Hm... A didn't know that fact about polarizing filter, I've never been higher than 1000 meters. I'll remember that. I would use 1 stop ND gradual filter than. About that contrails, if you didn't mention them i probably wouldn't notice them at all. But if they bug you so much, why not just clone them out? I would.:)

Dave, this is a wonderful, classic composition. It looks like you have used a relatively long focal length and this has allowed you to keep the foreground and background in focus. In answer to your question about the contrails, I would probably clone them out. They are in a rather strong position at the end of the main diagonal that goes from bottom right to top left. I would only leave them in if the message of my photo were to be: "look how machines follow us even to a place like this".

Thank you for your comments. I think I will clone them out. The focal length was 9.7mm on the FujiFilm FinePix S602 Zoom I had for use at the time. Additionally, shot aperture priority @ 1/290th sec f11 on ISO 200.

-Dave