Sierra Cloudburst

My first trip to the Sierra backcountry was a great experience, complete with some exceptional lighting in the Dusy Basin area. A friend from CA recommended this area to me for its beauty and easy accessibility. My wife didn't join me for this trip, so I needed to make sure the gear hauling was manageable. I had scouted some locations earleir that afternoon which seemed to be protected from the wind. Two evenings in a row I was greeted with rain and hail, but somehow things cleared enough toward sunset. Everchanging mommatus clouds and light allowed images that could have been taken over several days due to the varying color of the light. The land in this image was illuminated by the mommatus clouds above, and gave a strong yellow cast to everything. I tried to reduce this post capture using WB adjustment, as I thought it might look a little too unusual to a viewer but was very real at the time.

I'd be interested to hear any comments on how you deal with such strong color cast - leave as seen or try to reduce. A similar condition occurred the next evening - this time with a red color cast at sunset.

17-40L, single exposure, f16, .5 sec exposure.

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