Post your best Landscape...

[ddt0725]

WOW!!! Knock dead gorgeous sunset! Great capture, wonderful composition with the dunes, Pat!

[patham]

Two unknown hikers on the glacier of La Meije

500D, 70-300 F/4.5-5.6 (non-L) @ 300mm, f/9, 1/800s, ISO100

[jfritz]

conropl,



Those shots are incredible. Is that they came off the camera, or did you do some post work?

Thanks for sharing.

[Kayaker72]

Pat...great capture!! I really like the colors and how you worked the small pool in to reflect some of the light.....

[M_Six]

Spectacular images, Pat. Truly stunning.

[conropl]

All - Thank you for the kind words. Sunsets during winter around here are great if you can find a clear horrizon and some clouds (although clouds are usually not a problem). There was a great sunset the night before, but I could not get out of work in time to catch it. It looked like it was going to be another nice one... so with a lot of rushing around and my wife picking up dinner for me, I was able to make it to the lake just in time to catch the sun going behind the dunes.

Those shots are incredible. Is that they came off the camera, or did you do some post work?

There is always some post work, but it was pretty minimal; and I usually do only enough to make it look like what I saw. To start with, I used a Grad ND filter at the camera. Processing was done in LR, and for the first picture I posted this is what was done:

• On this one, I changed White Balance because AWB made the ice unnaturally blue. Changed to "shade" because the sun was down for quite a while, and was getting fairly dark.
• +0.14 on the exposure
• +20 (on a scale of 0-100) on fill light
• Clarity to +22 (on a scale of -100 to +100)
• Minimal sharpening (Radius=1, Amount=25, Detail=25, Masking=0)
• NR at 28 (luminance), detail at 50%
• I check the Lens Profile Correction to get rid of that nasty magenta fring that the 24-105L leaves.

In this case, the sun was below the horrison and the clouds were positioned so the sun was lighting them up from the under side. The light also reflected off the clouds down to the lake so everything was very colorful. Here is a shot when there was more clouds overhead and lite up from underneath. I did not post this because the ice was moving to much and blurred.


Silver Lake-1107.jpg by westmichigan, on Flickr

[Steve U]

Great work Pat, lovely colours.

[bigblue1ca]

Amazing colours, love the lines and layers.

[francongphotography]

@Pat: nice photo showing the texture of the glacier..

@Conropl: Unbelievable! Really like your photos, I've always looked up to you and hopefully I'll make one of those amazing shots like yours one day.

[conropl]

...hopefully I'll make one of those amazing shots...

God does all the work... I just try not to screw it up (unfortunately I am not always successful at that).

Suggestions: If you do not have one, get a Grad ND filter (probably what has helped me with sunsets the most), and don't be one of the photographers that leaves as soon as the sun dips behind the horrizon. The best colors comes when it starts getting a little darker and the exposures start getting longer (outside of hand holding range) and when everyone else has gone home.

Thanks for the nice comments.

Pat