East of the Rockies

Do you get the feeling from the lack of comments, that this aint a crowd pleaser?
Well, you dont always want to please the crowd, thats for sure. Its a simple comp, but i like it. The problem as i see it is the DOF, which you say you were specifically working on so im puzzled why you used such a large aperature. It looks like the focus was on the fg here, but i think to be really effective the bg needs to be crystal clear here, and its not quite there, at least in this jpeg.

Bill,

Certainly a nice, pastoral winter scene. I think processing wise the color and exposure look quite good. A simple enough scene nicely captured. I do get the sense that you pointed the camera slightly upwared (or probably cropped) I'm guessing to eliminate some human element, like barns or fences? I can understand that if you wanted to post here, but generally speaking without regard to this forum, I'm wishing for something more at the bottom?

As far as the dof goes, I agree with Stan. I think at the distances shown here you should have been able to get good dof field at that aperture. I mean the trees look a couple hundred feet away so you should be able to get that depth even focusing on the trees. at least I would think so.

Lon

Lon--that would be true at 24 mm--not sure about 48mm, depends on the distance here.

I'm sorry Stan, I know all of yours are!

That's why I posted here to get feedback like yours, and Lon's. This wasn't meant for views or comments. Once again, Lon hit the nail on the head with there being more in the FG that I couldn't post here in "Landscape". There wasn't much light in the FG, only on the mountains--if that explains anything. The trees were probably a couple of hundred yards away, not up close. Hope that helps, I appreciate your feedback!!

Hey Bill,

This is a nice pano. It does look as if it needs more DOF, and sharpness. Why the wide aperture? were you hand holding the camera? on a tripod, the shutter speed could have been a lot longer, allowing for a smaller aperture.

Chris

Hand held Chris on a near-zero degree morning, just on a ride to nowhere in particular. It was "shoot and move" so I didn't pull out the tripods. Main focus was capturing and processing in RAW again (about five or six times total now), no excuse though... that's exactly why I posted it here.

Thanks for your input as always!!!

A nice moody scene. The DoF has already been kicked around so I'll let that dog lay. My only suggestions is a personal one. I would like to see more of the bottom of the trees. Having them cut off really disrupts the image IMO, plus I just love barren, gray trees - just my personal tastes I guess. Processing in RAW is no big deal, you'll get the hang of it quickly, and once you do, you'll never go back.

Bill, you too are absolutely right. I debated on even posting this in ESS/Landscape, because it forced me to shoot and/or (both actually) crop out the bottom portion of the scene. I'm sure I'll end up posting that in M&N eventually, it's just a small fence, but... I thought I'd get more feedback here in landscape so I also shot this version. Thank you as always Bill.

Thanks again Stan, I think I stated there really wasn't much light out except on the mountain--which probably should have been more of my focal point. So I guess as far as the aperture question, I didn't use a tripod to allow for a longer exposure to solve part of that problem. Also, as I recall, every time I tried certain settings and make the mountain my focal point, the camera would freeze and not focus--in other words, hit the button, wait for go ahead... and instead it locked up. Numerous times. This is still a big time learning process for me... and I couldn't figure out why that kept happening.