A SanJuan Monsoon Sunset

A very wet, monsoonal weather pattern has enveloped the San Juans for much of this holiday weekend. I tried to take advantage of this by hiking around the Lobo Overlook area at Wolf Creek Pass one evening. Fortunately, I lucked out when the clouds to west broke about 45 minutes before sunset. I was busy shooting the following pano of the South San Juans right before sunset...

http://www.pbase.com/gschmickle/image/102410228

when a couple of rumbles of thunder caught my attention in the other direction. I climbed up the ridge to find the scene you see above. I quickly set up as the storm was bearing down on me pretty fast. Just as I was removing my lens cap, a multiple forked bolt of lightning flashed through the scene. Damn! I cursed my bad timing and took about 10 long exposures hoping for a repeat performance, but mother nature wouldn't oblige. By that time the rains hit and I was forced to head for shelter. My bad luck trying to capture an interesting lightning shot continues. Of course, I probably should just be thankful that I wasn't turned into french toast!

As you can imagine, the above exposure was pretty tricky. After working and reworking it several times, I settled on a manual blend of two exposures (2 stops apart) of the same raw image. I was in too much of a hurry to get out the grads on this one.

WOW!! This is quite lovely. Great job on the blend.

That red glow looks absolutely wicked! Great shot. The reds on the left though look like they need to be turned down a bit, on this old crt monitor they look a bit overexposed and oversaturated.

Very nice pano by the way!

Wow - that's one stunning scene! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been standing there - mine would have been an action shot as I headed back down the ridge.

Definitely a matter of personal taste, but it feels a little too dark (even for a storm). It's remarkable as is, and if it were a mediocre scene, I probably wouldn't bother with additional effort. But I think this one warrants some tedious (but worthwhile) processing time.

p.s. I agree w/ Don's observation about the reds.

Thanks for the suggestions Don and Rick. Here's my attempt to touch this up a bit. Reds are toned down on the left. I lightened this as much as I could, but this is the farthest I can go without noise becoming an issue. The downside of pushing the foreground by a little more than a stop to begin with.

A stunning scene for sure, Guy. The clouds and light are to die for! I've been sitting on a somewhat similar image for over a year now because I can't get the blending right. Your second attempt is taking this in the right direction, but the sky is still funky.

Incredible, Guy! Though the bolt would have been something else, this is still a definite keeper/stunner as it is. I agree there have been some amazing sunsets around here lately - on Friday I saw an unreal sunset in Telluride, but wasn't in photo-mode at the time.

I'm seeing some funky light areas that reveal the blending and give it an odd look. Particularly in the left side sky and right side mountain. I don't know what exposures you're working with but perhaps it would look more natural to let those areas retain some more darkness.

The pano is awesome too. What a show!

those are some sweet images you got going there

Very nice, looks like an amazing show for sure!!

I agree some of the sky has issues, but with a bit more time that might be fixable.

Thanks for sharing.

Very dynamic shot! I agree with Jack about the blend in the upper left-hand corner but this is a cool shot. I was in NW New Mexico for these storms and it made for some awesome displays. Coming across Wolf Creek pass yesterday the clouds were lingering on the ridges and the patchy light across the valleys was great. Unfortunately the family wasn't in the mood for more photo stops. I'd love to hike that area!

I really like #2... great image. The pano is a beautiful image also.

Nice shot Guy. My post-processing suggestion is along the lines of Jack's. In the left sky, there appears to be too much contrast. I would expect the brightest zones to be the sunlit red areas and the orange on the horizon. The highlights that are brighter than these colorful areas is a bit disconcerting. It's well worth the labor though.

John

Thanks John. I actually did take all the critiques to heart and reworked the entire image (including the blend). I came away with something I'm much happier with. I've realized that my first two attempts above were sloppy and paid much more attention to the left hand sky area in particular. At this point I don't really feel like resizing something to fit within the forum guidelines, but you can see my final result here...

http://www.pbase.com/gschmickle/image/102525818