chris_venhaus

I admire you work and what you are able to extract from a digital camera. The only thing that keeps this from a 10 on aesthetics (for me) is I would have liked just a bit higher camera angle to make the mud pot a little bigger (and more round) in the frame. A very simple, yet effective composition.

There was no ND filter used. I used a 24mm lens, and dodged the beach on the LS in PS, because my scanner had a hard time with the detail. Use of a ND filter would have been all but impossible, while still getting the cloud formations crisp, and maintaining a reasonable depth of field. Thanks for your comments :-)

Carl: I used a 50mm f1.8 lens, but the aperture was actually f5.6 (used a hyperocal with COC of 2.5). I had to use a relatively large aperture to "freeze" the clouds which were hauling butt... I shoot most of my landscapes at f5.6 or f8 to freeze the clouds and water as much as possible. Sorry for the consusion.

Your thoughts are very much appreciated.... :-)

This was actually a pretty tough shot to get, and was the only composition I took while spending an afternoon at Joshua Tree N.P. I was frustrated by all the jet trails, and had just about given up when I saw this unusual cloud hauling butt. I scrambled to look for a Joshua Tree that would make an interesting silhouette and composed to intercept the cloud when it moved into the frame. I had to shoot at f5.6 to keep a decent shutter speed. The color version is more 3 dimensional and the colors are way cool, but the slide wouldn't scan well, so I converted to B&W. I usually just use matrix metering and then bracket in 1/2 stop increments +/- 1 stop.

 

Thanks for the comments, everybody :-)

Thanks.

Used 2-stop ND grad (Hitech)