American Basin

American Basin was the last stop capping my week in the San Juans. Taken last Friday evening. There was a hint of color in the evening overcast.

Taken near the parking lot, with the most color the sky showed.

#3 Saturday morning.

#4 of the small falls above the parking lot.

#5 Last view.

All of these are single exposures. Thank you in advance for any C&C welcome.

I'm glad the flowers up there lasted for you. I like #3 the best. Nice light on the ridge and I like the low perspective and color in the foreground.

Your color is good but I think you could bump the contrast, especially midtone contrast to make these 'pop' a little more. Also, how are you preparing these for the web? Are you sharpening them for screen display? They seem just a little soft. Maybe you were dealing the the seemingly ever-present breeze through the flowers.

I'd also like to have the distant ridge either a little more in focus or more out of focus. As is, it draws my eye away from the flowers but the soft focus is distracting. This is tough to address for long scenes like this. Do you use hyper-focal focusing?

Where else did you get to? Thanks for sharing!

I always like the little waterfalls.
I'm agreeing with Kalin about the contrast. It might give 'em a little boost.
The harsh light in the background in 3 & 5 isn't doing much for me without some clouds.
Nice set of photos.

Kalin, Thank you for a good inquiring/suggestive response. Regarding focusing, # 3was shot at f/14, 22mm, which should give me a hyperfocal distance of about maybe around 6' at 22mm (interpolating some dof tables I had printed off). I had focused on the red paintbrush for this shot, thinking the distant ridge should still be in focus.

For sharpening for here on NPN, I have been sharpening the full size image with USM, and simply resizing to 720pix, which likely has led to the extreme softness.

For this repost, I have started over being sure to add some extra midrange contrast. For sharpening (after light, contrast, saturation adjustments) I resized to 1200 pix, slightly oversharpened at 400%, 0.3r, then resized to 720pix and finanly sharpened 100% 0.2r.

Let me know how the repost seems to you.

Besides American Basin and Clear Lake, my week also included theTrout Lake and Yankee Boy areas.

Thanks.

I think this looks better. The distant ridge looks a little better with the sharpening. Be careful the grass doesn't go too dark with the contrast adjustments. I agree about the lack of clouds, but you have to work with what you get.

Hyperfocal technique can be tricky. If the hyperfocal distance for that focal length/aperture was 6' but your subject was closer than that, the infinity subject won't be in focus. I usually try to make sure my subject is just beyond the hyperfocal distance to be safe, even though you should have some in-focus range on the close side of the hyperfocal distance.

As far as sharpening, I recommend final output sharpening at the final size. I use the PhotoKit Sharpener (PKS) plugin from pixelgenius and highly recommend it. I have long forgotten how to use USM. LR's sharpening is roughly equivalent to the PKS input sharpening. LR also does a good job on output sharpening for print or export. But the creative sharpening tools in PKS can't be matched, IMO.

Later.

Great series, Doug! I especially like the reworked version of #3 and #5..
Looks like you had a real fruitful trip. First time in the area to shoot flowers?
Even after the initial sharpening, I always seem to need just a touch more after resizing for the Web.

Comps and exposures are all very good. The color is excellent as well, and just some adjustments as Kalin suggested to make them pop a little.

Nice work Doug. Love the comp in the 5th one best!

There are still images to process from YBB and others to redo. I will see what improvements can be done to sharpening and contrast via the PSE7 I am using. Thanks for all of your comments and suggestions.

John, yes, this was my first venture to the San Juans to purposely photgraph the flowers and landscapes. I have not been to YBB since 1989, or AB since 1994.

Beautiful display! I really like #5 especially. I think your repsot looks great for the fg flowers, but its too contrasty for the peaks--id prefer a softer bg closer to the original (the sky is more blue without the contrast boost) Nice set!