Taken this morning in NE Phoenix. I've been waiting for months for the sun to rise near this location (rises further south through fall and winter). Man, the sun rises fast down here, I had about 20 seconds to get the few exposures taken before it popped up TOO high, lol.
Comments appreciated... to me the sun feels a little too centered, but panning right wasn't pretty, mostly bare and rocky. The cholla grew where they grew, so I had to make the best of it. I now realize that I focused a wee bit too far into the middle ground, because the closest cholla isn't popping. For those of us who need reading glasses, it's fairly accurate having the first 24" blurry!
Technicals: Four exposures mooshed together with Photomatix to control the WIDE luminance range (then adjusted it as best as I could to get rid of the HDR look). Then basical Curves, Saturation, Levels and USM for input sharpening of course. For output I did the Adamus sharpening technique.
5DM2, 16-35mm @25mm, f/14, ISO 100, AWB (warmed it up a bit in RAW but kept it a little dark on purpose)
Comments
21 commentsCool shot. Good planning.
Pete D.
BTW, there's a certain set that like to claim that smartphones take really good images, and in diffused light with a 2-stop range that may be so. But above you'll see what an iPhone 4 can do in intense light... took this about 90 seconds before the sun popped up. Not sure I can see a quality difference from my original post.
I see what you mean, I'll revisit it and do some tweaking. In a way I like the warmth in the same sense as using a colored filter to make a scene heavy in one color, but my goal was certainly to show an image of the scene before me. I'll dink and see what happens, and I'll keep this in mind when I head back there (i'll avoid the headless chicken in the center FG, lol). I appreciate the input!