Posted by John Freeman on October 21, 2015 at 2:23 PM
B&W or Color? I will echo Doug's earlier post with the same question.
I shot this panorama in Jackson Hole 3 weeks ago at sunset. The sunset wasn't that spectacular but I wanted to capture the rippled cloud formation and the stormy clouds capping the higher peaks hinting of the coming winter, while retaining the yellow and orange fall colors of the cottonwood trees along the Snake River. The overall panorama is a 1:4 ratio shot derived from a set of +/- 2.5 stops bracketed images to yield 38 HDR images stitched to form a 30" x 120" final image. I feel like the B&W gives the feel of winter coming on better but it looses the color visial information of the fall season colors.
Posted by Monika Chace on October 21, 2015 at 7:54 PM
John, it's a shame that the image here is so small. I'm sure that there's a lot of detail that we can't see, especially in the B&W. Even the fall colors don't show up well at this size. The upper left corner looks pretty blown out in both. Do you have a version with more of the rippled clouds (which was an important element to you) and less of the meadow? Or a link to a larger image?
Posted by Doug Koepsel on October 21, 2015 at 9:19 PM
I wonder if adding a slight blue tone to the B&W would help give the feel of a cold winter.
Posted by Monika Chace on October 22, 2015 at 7:58 PM
John, thanks for the links to the high res images. Cool project. The B&W still looks kinda flat to me. Maybe increasing the blacks in the mountains & clouds would help with that. The contrast is much better in the foreground than the rest of it. The color one works better as it is, but I think you could still boost the saturation in the trees if you want them to stand out. If you prefer it subtle, it's fine as is. You have much more interesting detail in the shot above than in either of the high res views, but your logo hides it. You might check out the processing John Mumaw did with his autumn scene Behold as I think he was able keep the sense of autumn colors in a B&W.
Discussion
3 repliesI shot this panorama in Jackson Hole 3 weeks ago at sunset. The sunset wasn't that spectacular but I wanted to capture the rippled cloud formation and the stormy clouds capping the higher peaks hinting of the coming winter, while retaining the yellow and orange fall colors of the cottonwood trees along the Snake River. The overall panorama is a 1:4 ratio shot derived from a set of +/- 2.5 stops bracketed images to yield 38 HDR images stitched to form a 30" x 120" final image. I feel like the B&W gives the feel of winter coming on better but it looses the color visial information of the fall season colors.