Yellowstone River Sunrise

First post to your forum. I look forward to checking out all the topics/posts from your little corner of the country ;-)

Took a trip to Yellowstone and Tetons last month and ended up with some satisfactory shots. This one is a manual blend of at least a half-dozen shots of different shutter speeds to maximize the effect of the sunburst. Taken with an old Nikon D50 and Sigma 10-20 with circular polarizer. What do you think?

Nice shot overall...great sunburst and light play acrosss the grasses. The fogbank is cool too!

Exactly what Jack said.
I am curious why you used a polarizer when looking almost directly into the sun, though. Seems like it wouldn't have any effect and is just two more pieces of glass stacked onto your lens that could degrade image quality.

I guess I don't really put much thought into my polarizer. It pretty much stays on my lens at all times. Thank you for the thought; I will definitely consider the scene and the effect a polarizer might have on the image in the future.

Pretty shot! It's cool how the fogbank, the shadows, the trees and mountains, everything seems to radiate from the sun. There's a lot of foreground without much to anchor the eye, though. But it's a beautiful scene!

The trees against the fogbank and the long shadow from the sunbust are nice. As Jackson mentioned, there is not much to interest me in the foregound so I would consider cropping 2/3 of it, and maybe some sky, to make a pano to feature the shadow, sunburst and fogbank more.

Welcome to the forum! I really like this shot... very peaceful, with lots of interest in the fog and light. I have a suggestion of my own, though it's different from the others... if it were mine I would crop it almost square, to the right side, to get rid of the sunburst entirely, along with the darker, murky left side. That, in my opinion, would leave you with a much simpler image, with a more even and softer looking light throughout.

I like the sunburst and fog but I think the foreground needs a little more contrast and the overall image could be a little brighter. Welcome to the forum!

Welcome, nice shot! I would turn up the sat just a touch and maybe some adjustments to the midtones.

Thanks very much for all your input, guys. This forum is definitely friendly and helpful. I will be trying some of the suggestions and plan for a couple re-posts in the near future.