A first critique - Fall Set - San Juans and Zion NP

Time to lay bare some photos for critique.

Yes, its time to stop endlessly mucking with Lightroom settings and get some opinion. I did just get my color pipeline in order - with the addition of a NEC PA241 monitor and ColorMunki. I enjoyed the factory settings until I saw 250 cdm default - wow overbright! so its calibrated at 100 cdm now. I hope I got the brightness adjustments and conversion to sRGB web presentation right.

Here are five shots representative of my fall travels - mostly San Juans and Zion NP. I'll save photos from other trips to Antelope Canyon and Canyonlands/Mesa Arch this fall for another time - or until I can find something unique on subsequent trips. No link yet - a website is coming.

Equipment used - Canon 7D; 24-105mm; 10-22mm; B+W ND and Polarizer filters; Manfrotto tripod

Images (c)2011 Karl Buiter

Images Next -

#1 "September Snow at Mineral Point". I scheduled an early trip to the San Juans to catch color on Red Mountain Pass. My September 16 arrival in Ouray came on the heels of an early snow storm; it was raining in Ouray but as a rounded the switchbacks I was greeted with a very white Ampitheatre. Soon after I rolled up Mineral Creek trail to catch the fresh blanket of snow up close. Here we are at 11,800 feet overlooking Mineral Point; a bunk house and remains of a stamp mill are in the valley. I have several other images-in-progress from this rare opportunity on high jeep trails.

#2 "Ironton Monoliths". The American Girl mine is an easy sidetrip on my annual hikes to Corkscrew Turntable high up on Red Mountain. My first photographic effort this past July to capture the mine was a mess. The return trip in September brought an opportunity to revisit the location. Its September 17 with a HDR-aided tight view through the trees. I dont do HDR that much - but it was a fairly dynamic light situation so gave it a try.

#3 "Zion Narrows Bouquet". Challenged by diffuse light on an early November Sunday, I ran a series of trees against the canyon walls in the Zion Narrows. I liked the layers of colors.

#4 "Emerald Red Leaves". On the same day, I ran the Emerald Pools Trail and encountered this pocket of rustic red leaves. This is still a work in progress; I think there maybe something in this composition. It rained soon after.

!!! Wow.,... seeing sRGB-mapped images on a calibarated wide-gamut monitor is a trip to the colorful land of Oz.

Purple Skies.

Looks better on my laptop.

Let me know if I mapped this wrong!!!

#5 "Sentinel Garden". On the following Sunday I spent most of an afternoon in the Court of the Patriarchs waiting for clouds to clear. After two hours up on a hill, I wandered back down to the Virgin River and setup again with a 1.8 ND. The patience was rewarded when the sun poured through the bend and ignited the trees. The moment lasted a mere minute; 1.3 seconds of it caught here.

Notes - With the sunbeam, the Sentinel got washed out and has been recovered by masking and reworking the levels / focus. Several branches removed. I did recently crop the top off to reduce the sky - not sure what to do about the large branch to the right now that a large portion is cropped out. Brightness and contrast has been ruining my nights :)

Some great work here Karl. I like them all, with the exception of #5, the washed out sky and comp don't really work for me. #3 is my favorite, I might be tempted to crop out the bottom up to the leaves to focus on the leaves and the canyon wall. #4 is very nice, I would crop the top off to get rid of that little bit of sky. #1 is terrific, great scene with the mines ruins.

The processing looks pretty good to me, except #2 which appears oversaturated. I agree about #5 being washed out, but overall a nice first post.

Nice first post and #3 is my fav as well. Also not a big fan of #5

Hi Karl, thanks for jumping in to the forum. A pretty set! I really like #4 especially. Two suggestions: Use blends (or grads, though blends are better in most cases) to deal with the HDR, i wouldnt mess with the software until you are a blending fanatic. Just my opinion. You also need to oversharpen for web, some of these look a bit soft. Thanks for sharing

To my eyes, #5 has the most potential compositionally, but it also is the most problematic in terms of exposure (blown-out sky, dark monolith, etc.) Thanks for sharing!

Welcome and thanks for your first post Karl! The colors look nice to me, no major problems on my monitor. I agree with Grant about the saturation on #2, but it's not too far off. I love the angle of that shot though, it's a bit different from those I've seen and taken from Ironton before. #4 evokes an interesting Eliot Porter-like chaotic nature composition. You might look at cropping some of the right side (get rid of the sky) and the bottom to accentuate the curve of the vivid red leaves even more. Nice set of images!

Really like #3. The trees really pop in the shade.

Thank-you everyone for the critique!

Scott and Joshua - excellent crop ideas - I tried them with care to keep balance and like the refinements. And thank-you Joshua for sending me over to look at Eliot Porter's collection.
Grant and Joshua - I agree, #2 got a bit oversaturated likely from the HDR step; as the LR sat #'s were all 0. Thank-you for the thumbs up on the angle and it seems definitely an image to get right.
Stan - I'll try to resist HDR even more :) Now that I outfitted with Pols and ND's, it is time to learn Grads. They would help on the #2 sky though the real push to HDR was in brightening/detailing the shady back (facing) side of the mine.
Glenn - Thanks for the encouragement on #5, That may be a retake next year; Yet I am still playing with it from all the bracketed exposures.

Development on #1 - I tried a vertical crop on the center section tree to tree and like the results. Interesting how one can completely change the crop or orientation and get a different "feel" from the same image.

Whew! I was posting correctly.