Hieroglyphic Mountains

Gallery: LandscapePosted June 27, 2011178 views3 comments

During a recent trip to Phoenix to visit family, I went on a spur of the moment, late afternoon trek to explore an area of the desert just outside of town that I had never been to before. With the skies sunny except for distant clouds far to the north, I had a comp with a sunstar behind backlit cholla cactus in mind, nor possibly an epic view of the desert mountains with the distant clouds in the background. The sun was going down quick by the time was getting out of my car so I didn't have a lot of time to look for comps. I thought the clouds looked cool and was looking for comps using them until I ran across this scene. I'm not completely satisfied with it, mainly because of the short tripod I had did not allow me to separate the cholla from the sunstar as much as I would like. Also, my lens is a crappy kit lens, so the sunstar doesn't look so great with it. It is a three exposure blend, which I'm pretty happy with. Had chromatic abb issues, which required extensive cloning. Thanks to NPN member Joel Hazelton for checking it over before I posted it and giving me solid feedback. Some sunstar issues remain as my cloning skill didn't seem to be good enough to take care of it. Also had to clone out some encroaching cacti on the left and right sides of the frame. I was so rushed setting up the comp and getting the right exposures, I didn't get the edges perfect, but I think I solved that problem. All comments and critiques welcome!

Canon T1i @ 25mm
ISO 100
f/25
1/13, .3 and 1.3 of a second exposures, raw processed in Lightroom, blended in CS5

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by Wayne Jones on June 27, 2011 at 9:04 PM

I think those glowing backlit cholla are the stars of this, more than a Sun star. Given that, and the fact that the sky is so light -- not providing enough contrast for a good Sun star, I think it would have been better to concentrate on the cactus glow here. Putting the cactus against a darker background helps in that respect, so I really like the way many of the cactus look in this frame. Of course, your story explains that you were rushed, and the tripod was short. Perhaps another time you could find a shorter cactus. In this small version the cactus does not seem real sharp. Not sure if that's just from image compression or if it's from diffraction shooting at f/25. Sun, cactus and deep shadows make a nice combination that I rarely get to see. I hope you get to spend lots of time with them!

Registered on April 18, 2007, 953 Posts, 6435 Comments

Comment posted by John Williams on June 28, 2011 at 12:08 AM

I do love a back-lit cholla! I think this is heading in a great direction, and great job on the blend. You've already mentioned my main nit; I too would like to see the cholla separated a bit from the sunstar. Another thought, that would take a bit of scouting, would be to find cholla with more tall saguaros behind so that the sky had less empty. I really like the one, but think several more would make it even better.

Registered on September 6, 2007, 221 Posts, 5985 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Overacker on June 28, 2011 at 1:08 AM

Jake,

I too really like backlit cholla and I think you did a good job considering having to rush around - I know we've all been there. And often times, we don't always get the best set up we'd like and I think that's what you have run in to here. I'm finding the lone saguaro to be somewhat problematic as it kind of detracts from the cholla for me. Perhaps if it was that perfect saguaro that we've all dreamed of finding.... but I'm kinda wishing this was just the sunset and the backlit cholla. But from what you've captured and processed, I think you did very well. The blend looks good and whatever cloning you did on the edges, I can't tell.

the only suggestion really is that I think you could get away with boosting the color/saturation a little bit to bring out some of the sunset colors as well as the highlights in the cholla.

Thanks for posting!

Lon

Registered on November 24, 2006, 521 Posts, 19147 Comments