Coyote Buttes (repost of #1)

I was anle to draw a permit for South Coyte Buttes for this past Sunday. Shane Knight, a friend and large format photographer in Flagstaff joined me on the permit. First hand reports were that Bucksin Gulch was mucky and thigh/waist deep, so we aborted that hike and tooled around the plateau in areas new to me. A couple of spots will be worth returning to under favorable light.

Here are a few from SCB on Sunday, and a B&W of the cliffs. Another is posted in ESS.

#1 The sun snuck under the clouds to briefly light the butte and remained long enough to get 4 shots for a focal blend.
(Larger image provided)

#2 Sand and Stone
The colors and shapes in the sandstone above Vermilion Cliffs is fascinating.

#3 Vermilion Cliffs B&W

All are nice but #2 and 3 are my favorites. #2 is the jaw dropper for me. I love this kind of detail shot

These are all nice Doug, I'm partial to grand landscapes, so the first one is my favorite, then the second for it's intimacy. I feel there is a bit much of the sky in the 3, but it doesn't really take away from the image.

#2 stamds out for me, but I'm partial to sandstone abstracts.

Hi Doug, you got some funky noise going on in the clouds in #1, it's my fav of the bunch. I'm guessing you had a VERY high dynamic range to shoot and handle, and your overall sky image had to be quite underexposed to handle the huge highlights on the right. Thus you had to pull detail out of the clouds on the left to match your foreground while keeping your highlights under control. BRUTAL...Two ways to handle this...take even more exposures of that sky then blend, blend, blend. Or, having a look at the these new cameras with the big shadow dynamic range.

Really like that first one. Most images from Coyote Buttes seem to be blue sky only. Nice to see some clouds.

Thanks all for the feedback.
Kane, you are right about the exposure used for the sky. Unfortunately I did not take any more exposures of the sky that might be blended. (next time). I will rework the sky exposure differently to see if I can rid the color weirdness. I appreciate your detailed suggestions.
Darren, CB seems to have its share of Willie Nelson's blue skies. We got lucky on this trip for the evening sky, considering the permit was applied for months in adavance.

Doug, the 1st one is nice, but put me down for #2. I really like the colors and textures.

Doug, I woke up this morning and realized I forgot one more thing concerning my post. Its my experience shooting super high dynamice range images with clouds is one of the most challenging blends. Its the moving clouds. We know using multiple images for exposure with moving clouds can be tough. Ive come to the conclusion that if the dynamic range is just too much for the exposure range of a single Raw image, then I'll have to live with some blown out highlights; which might not be a bad thing considering that's likely what the true scene looked like.

1 and 3 are nice, but #2 is fairly fascinating.

What Morris said. I like #2 and your image in the Landscape gallery a lot! No nits from me.

These are all lovely, Doug. If I'm forced to pick a favorite, it would be the black and white. Guess I'm just in a monochrome mood. ;-) I've got to get back out to this spot!

Bret and Peter, I did take some horizontal versions of the B&W. I know its a horizontal world, but i was drawn to the clouds overhead for a vertical comp.

I much prefer the original as the sky above the clouds provides more drama and a good balance with the empty foreground.

First and second are spectacular. I love the matrix of bunch grass in the foreground of the last one, but I'm curious about the color there. The sand and grass color contrast captivated me when I was visiting that area last month.

Great vision and capture on these Doug!

Repost of #1. I reprocessed the raw of the sky before combining with the land. No D-lighting, less saturation, removed a little yellow, and painted the bright spots.
I think I am mentally stuck on this location trying to get a good sunset shot, as I like the colors and cracks of the foreground leading to the formation.
Marylynne, the small clumps of brush were pretty brown when we stopped, making the foreground uninspiring.

It's amazing what a few tweaks can accomplish. I like this redux quite a bit, Doug!

Amazing !

A note about Buckskin Gulch as mentioned in the first post. I was at the BLM office today (got a SCB walk-in for Sunday) and conversation turned to Buckskin. Apparently there is one very deep pool about 10-20' across at the start. Those who get past that have made a trail through the debris area further down.

Awesome shots doug. The repost of #1 is much better. The light and the comp is excellent. #2 is also nice. I think a closer comp focusing more on the textures would have been nicer. I like the vertical comp of #3.