Crater Lake this Winter

My buddy and I spent a couple days up at the lake in March just after 15 inches of fresh snow and dumped the previous week. We camped down at Fort Klamath spending sunset and sunrise at the lake snowshoeing in opposite directions to strategic locations. I did have pretty sweet conditions, especially for it being my first trip out there.

This shot is a stitch/blend attempt from at least 12 different images. I first blended each of the three final shots used in the blend and then used PS's photo merge to do the final stitching. I do think it turned out fairly nice considering the time and effort I put into processing this image.

What do you guys think? Thank you in advance for your feedback.

Sweet conditions for sure...and it looks like you put together a very nice stitched shot here. I like the blue contrasted with the orange/red/yellow in the sky and the lake.

Nice.

Beautiful. I don't see any "evidence" of stitching so you did beautifully on the processing. It's difficulty to get snow to look accurately exposed in this light (not gray, but not over exposed), and you hit the sweet spot here.

Excellent blend and stitch work. My eye is drawn to the foreground snow, so I would suggest a zoom in crop all around to cut out excess snow and high sky which do not add to the image.

Congratulations on your capture, stitchwork and processing, very well done. I love the light and your settings.

Well done the processing looks great, I love the colors and mood created.

Your effort seems to have paid off.

Thank you guys. I will definitely be trying out the crop suggestion.

I've looked at this a number of times and I just love it as is. I don't think I'd crop it because it gives a sense of place. Excellent shot, Daniel. I've been to Crater Lake 3 times now and have come away with nothing each time. So I have high respect for pulling this one off. Congrats.

Beautiful photo Daniel. I love the warm glow coming off the snow. You really captured the moment here!

Thanks a lot guys. Really helps to know I'm on the right track here.

Looking at this again, I'm wondering whether it has a slight tilt to the right. It's hard to feel confident about keeping a level camera at CL because the rim has rises and dips and the lakeshore curves back toward you. My tendency is to somehow get tricked by those features and overcompensate (lowering the peaks). If I just look at the water itself, I think the right side is a couple degrees lower than it should be.

I agree with David Bostock, I would not crop it further. The lines in the foreground snow work very well to help draw the viewer's eye in (at least mine... :)). Truly a wonderful image.