Longs Peak - Morning Light

Last month I had the pleasure of joining Erik and Scott on an early morning hike up the Twin Sister's trail to catch a sunrise on Longs Peak. Unfortunately all the storm clouds from the previous evening had cleared and all we got was this blue sky .

This is a 2 row, 10 portrait image, stitch. 400mm lens.

It is cropped from this shot (16 images):
http://www.pelzmann.smugmug.com/photos/160731839-O.jpg

That's an amazing job stitching that many images together. What software did you use? I really find it impressive that there's no hints of seams or odd warping of perspective. Did you use one of those fancy-nodal-pano-tripod head-dohickys? <-- Technical term...

Thanks, Jason.

Nothing special on the pano, just a ball head and CS2 merge for stitching.
With long lenses, I don't really find the need for special equipment or worrying about "nodal" points - although I'm sure it doesn't hurt. CS3 does a better job on stitching, but I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive - long story.

Looks good Bill. Too bad about the clouds. I've been striking out with them in the morning lately too. Either too cloudy/foggy for a sunrise or clouds on the east blocking the aplenglow or no clouds at all.

Very nice light and comp. There is something off with the colors, but cannot tell what exactly. Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful image! Love the light.

Thanks, Momo and Dan.

Just curious if anyone else finds the colors odd?
I just kept the WB as shot, used the Lightroom vibrance slider for a slight color saturation boost, and increases contrast with curves. Maybe I need to check this out on a calibrated monitor?

Colors look excellent to me. I must say I like the uncropped version better. Both are excellent, though.