This morning conditions were ripe for shooting lakes at sunrise. I headed up to Lake Bierstadt in Rocky Mountain National Park for a spectacular sunrise. As I wanted to be able to make the most of this beautiful sunrise and not wish I had a better camera, I made this image which is a composite of 16 vertical images using my Canon 5D and 70-200 F4L. I then stitched it with AutoPano Pro which does a great job. I'm wondering however if this image looks a little bit unreal. I didn't do much in terms of processing. Do you guys think it looks a bit fake and do you have any thoughts as to what might have contributed to this? I want to be able to use this one. Thanks!
The only thing that looks a little weird to me is the white bit of sky on the left above the trees and the reflection that is less intense and brighter than the mountains above.. The rest looks great.
Agree with Mel - great job, Erik. Also, I see a bit of barrel distortion (?) on the distant lake like? I have heard great things about AutoPan Pro, how did you like it?
Nice capture; I might desaturate the blues just a bit and brighten the midtones overall. It also looks like the shadows could be opened up but hard to tell from the JPG.
This image is a good example of the need to make firm decisions when editing/processing the image... allowing an element to be dominant makes all the difference. Is this a picture of the mountains, the clouds, the reflection, the tiny details in the trees and grass? Trying to "have it all" diminishes the overall impact.
Let something dominate and the photo will be much stronger. Pick a point of focus. Think about the scene in terms of your emotional reaction to what matters most, and process it for that. To me, it's the interaction of the clouds and the edges of the mountains. If I were editing it, everything else should support that. But that's just my take.
And I would definitely retouch out the post/tree trunk in the dead center of the frame, and maybe the rock toward the right. They attract undue attention.
I don't think the distortion is an issue at all.
Overall it represents a set of beautiful captures and a good composite; to push it into "exquisite" territory I think you need to take some chances with your processing and let your creative spirit show. From what I know of your work, it's less about documentation and more about evoking a mood.
How about brightening one of the peaks in the center?
Posted by Kalin Wilson on July 28, 2008 at 8:36 PM
I agree with the comments so far. I don't think the distortion is very noticeable, at least in the web jpeg. For large panos like this I usually process the raw files through DxO first to adjust for distortion, but I'm usually shooting a little wider angle than 70mm.
One challenge that I've had with sunrise panos like this where the sky is significantly lighter on one side than the other is getting smooth transitions in the sky from light to dark across the pano. In one instance, I couldn't get a good blend from either AutoPano Pro or CS3. I ended up taking the stitch from CS3 with the layers preserved and hand-built gradient masks to control the blend of the sky between frames of the stitch. Quite a pain but necessary. Many of the blending artifacts that forced me down this path weren't visible until I started printing at larger sizes, they weren't immediately visible on the monitor at 'fit' sizes or even 100% (until I knew where they were). They were visible at 200%. So if you haven't already, check the stitch transition zones at a high zoom and make sure you like the blend from Autopano Pro.
Great shot, Erik, love the clouds especially. You've corrected the white sky area pretty well, although a bit darker might be even better. I think the reflection should be a bit darker as well. By the way, I enjoyed my brief visit to your outstanding gallery. Awesome images, terrific location and perfect gallery size!
Pretty sweet Erik, will make a great Pano large print!. I think you are pretty close with your 3rd posted version, close enough probably for only picky photographers to notice those few things!. Perhaps I'll see it hanging in your gallery pretty soon!.
It's a gorgeous shot, and I know nothing about digital retouching, and if you hadn't told me it was a series of photos I never would have known...except I would have wondered about the mountain on the very left looking super imposed so to speak on the sky. However, at closer inspection, looking at the reflection in the water on the left it has clouds that don't exist above the snowy crevice in the sky itself. Maybe that's why everyone is focusing on that part of the photo. Also, my eyes won't stop looking at the half circle ripple/line dead center in the water just above the mountains in the reflection. I can definitely see this hanging over someone's couch.
One question - how did you get the family of ducks that ALWAYS seem to be there from not making ripples in the water?
Posted by Rene Pirolt on July 29, 2008 at 11:19 AM
Erik – that is a fantastic pano! Other than maybe desaturate the reds, I wouldn’t change much. This is a great shot!
Posted by Mike Barton on July 29, 2008 at 12:30 PM
Erik,
Great image - the clouds are nice. I see that you improved the white sky on the left from the original image, but I still don't see the clouds just above the mountains on the left as they are in reflection . Is that detail still on the original?
Can't improve on the comments thus far--but the last version you posted is well done. I agree with Nat that you should work on some selective burning/dodging to change the focus more...there's a lot in the image to work with, emphasize what you think is the main thing...
Great image - the clouds are nice. I see that you improved the white sky on the left from the original image, but I still don't see the clouds just above the mountains on the left as they are in reflection . Is that detail still on the original?
I believe since this was a 16 image stitch it appears that the clouds were moving fast or Eric wasn't fast enough. The clouds have moved between taking the images of the sky and of the reflection. It looks like he started at upper left and moved right to get all the sky images and then went down a row and proceeded to the left to get all the foreground.
BTW, this is a great image. With the rework it looks really nice Eric.
Discussion
19 repliesMel-
On a second look, the transition from the dark to lighter sky on the left still looks strange - but that may just be the highly compressed jpeg.
This image is a good example of the need to make firm decisions when editing/processing the image... allowing an element to be dominant makes all the difference. Is this a picture of the mountains, the clouds, the reflection, the tiny details in the trees and grass? Trying to "have it all" diminishes the overall impact.
Let something dominate and the photo will be much stronger. Pick a point of focus. Think about the scene in terms of your emotional reaction to what matters most, and process it for that. To me, it's the interaction of the clouds and the edges of the mountains. If I were editing it, everything else should support that. But that's just my take.
And I would definitely retouch out the post/tree trunk in the dead center of the frame, and maybe the rock toward the right. They attract undue attention.
I don't think the distortion is an issue at all.
Overall it represents a set of beautiful captures and a good composite; to push it into "exquisite" territory I think you need to take some chances with your processing and let your creative spirit show. From what I know of your work, it's less about documentation and more about evoking a mood.
How about brightening one of the peaks in the center?
One challenge that I've had with sunrise panos like this where the sky is significantly lighter on one side than the other is getting smooth transitions in the sky from light to dark across the pano. In one instance, I couldn't get a good blend from either AutoPano Pro or CS3. I ended up taking the stitch from CS3 with the layers preserved and hand-built gradient masks to control the blend of the sky between frames of the stitch. Quite a pain but necessary. Many of the blending artifacts that forced me down this path weren't visible until I started printing at larger sizes, they weren't immediately visible on the monitor at 'fit' sizes or even 100% (until I knew where they were). They were visible at 200%. So if you haven't already, check the stitch transition zones at a high zoom and make sure you like the blend from Autopano Pro.
Great image by the way!
Great image - the clouds are nice. I see that you improved the white sky on the left from the original image, but I still don't see the clouds just above the mountains on the left as they are in reflection . Is that detail still on the original?
FWIW,
-D
I believe since this was a 16 image stitch it appears that the clouds were moving fast or Eric wasn't fast enough.
BTW, this is a great image. With the rework it looks really nice Eric.