I took a week long trip down to my favorite areas of the state and was blessed with some great scenes to shoot! Very productive trip for sure! Camped at Paradise Divide, Lost Lake Slough, and near Creede for the nights and shot lots of places in between. The ferns on Kebler Pass were really beautiful and green!
First up is the pond at the top of Paradise Divide with the Milky Way. It was a absolutely gorgeous night up there! I rented a Canon 5D Mk. III for the trip and I'm really impressed.
Nice set of images. I particulary am envious of your night shots. That first one with the reflection is just fantastic! What was your exposure and time settings? I tried some star trail images in my last backpack trip with horrible results.
The only suggestion for my taste would have been to focus way in on the fern image. Really put the ferns as the majority of the image and as the main focal point to really display that brilliant color.
Hi Ryan, thanks for sharing these shots. I kind of like your Dyke shot of Mount Owen and Ruby. Looks like you had a little Gap Lighting there and your cloud conditions leve me wanting more. BTW, I'm surprised nobody hasn't chopped that darn tree down in your Clear Creek Falls shot. Darn thing looks a bit dead anyways right!
The gap lighting teased us Kane, never fully developed like I was hoping for. Beautiful nonetheless! I actually kind of like that tree that blocks N. Clear Creek Falls because it forces me to scramble down across the boulders to get a better shot (and keep my photos different from the scores that people take up on the cliffs!). That morning I was a little too sore to do any scrambling, so in that instance it would have been convenient for that tree to be gone.
Posted by Tom Stermitz on July 20, 2012 at 12:04 AM
The first one is lovely. Not much star motion for a 33 sec shot.
The falls are nice, Maybe crop out a little of the foreground? But there is something I don't like about the colors of the trees on the plateau. A little flat or washed out? These new sensors have such huge dynamic range, that we can choose how we want to deal with the zone system.
Great shots, but the first star shot is my favorite. Everything I have been reading about the quality of the new sensor on the 5D Mark III is confirmed with your photograph. I upgraded to the 5D Mark III recently but have not been able to get any night shots yet. Thanks for sharing.
I also feel that your 'starscapes' are the best of the lot, but I sure do like the panorama of the mountains!
Looks pretty soft here, but you got some nice light and dramatic clouds.
Though the angles are unique and the exposures are right-on, I agree with John that these look a bit soft to me. Needs a bit of sharpening for web presentation. Nice group of photos though!
Discussion
16 repliesFirst up is the pond at the top of Paradise Divide with the Milky Way. It was a absolutely gorgeous night up there! I rented a Canon 5D Mk. III for the trip and I'm really impressed.
The only suggestion for my taste would have been to focus way in on the fern image. Really put the ferns as the majority of the image and as the main focal point to really display that brilliant color.
I am not sure the direction of the shot, but I see some green that could be part of the aurora? Its been really active again.
The falls are nice, Maybe crop out a little of the foreground? But there is something I don't like about the colors of the trees on the plateau. A little flat or washed out? These new sensors have such huge dynamic range, that we can choose how we want to deal with the zone system.
Looks pretty soft here, but you got some nice light and dramatic clouds.
Really like the pano, the storm clouds kind of reflect the undulating trees.