Canyon Colors

Nice overall mountain scene.  I think it needs just a bit more contrast.  I like the composition of this image with the row of mountain tops leading upwards. 

Beautiful alpine scene, Stephen.  I like the fall colors and the overall comp works very well.   There are a couple of things to point out to my eye.  First and foremost is the time of day.  The light appears a little harsh to me. Secondly, there is a little bit of a halo along the left ridge line and a couple of dust bunnies there as well.  There also appears to be a couple of clone circles that show up  just a little further towards the center from the dust spots.  The dust spots are easy to fix and I think I would readdress the overall exposure here.  I think it has some good potential.

Yes, the light is not the most ideal, but it still works for me and you did a good job taming the DR. I do second Gary's commenst about the dust bunnies and the halo.

Thanks for the comments, nice to have a different set of eyes taking a look. I missed those dust specs (my sensor needs a good cleaning) I think the clone spots might be some sun glare, I did not see them until you mentioned them and now I see them at every glance. The halo along the ridge  might be a sun line, I didn't do any "brush" work on the image, it was a miday shot so the light was not ideal. I'll see what can be done with some post processing with the some of the shadows.     

You've got a fine collection of yellows here Stephen and the view around the peak on the left to the distance peaks adds a fine sense of "lets go exploring".  The blending is probably where the halo along the left rigdge comes from, did you align the images before blending and are you aware of Tony Kuyper's luminosity masks.  Those masks can be very useful in getting nicely feathered blends.  A different time of day could be good, but that depends on the sun angle relative to the valley and the peaks.  A useful tool for checking that out is the online program called The Photographer's Ephemeris.  It shows where the sun (and the moon) are with respect to the landscape at any time of day and year.

Stephen,

You've got lots of fine Autumn color in this. This looks like late morning in McGee Creek. Even though the light is bright, I like atmosphere. If you decide to do a little more in post-processing, you might consider pulling a little cyan out of the sky while you're at it. I think Mark is correct that the blending is what caused the halo, but you should be able to fix it.

I've always liked McGee Creek. It tends to be less crowded in the Fall than Bishop Creek or Lundy Canyon.

--P

Mark and Preston, thanks for your input...I  was not aware of Tony K's masks, I sometimes use the Ephemeris program but did not consult it on the pretrip. I have only merged a few images, the three shots here were merged in LR6 and it is an auto align. Preston you are right on point with McGee Creek Canyon at high noon. I did visit Lundy  Canyon the next day around twilight and will post a few images from there, also some morning images from Mono and a few aspen shots from Conway Summit.

A classic autumn Sierra scene. The mid-day light makes it a bit tough, but great to see McGee Creek looking good.