Years Gone By

Gallery: LandscapePosted October 17, 2012539 views15 comments

A lonely plateau just outside Glacier Park...I know this tree has been shot before, but this was a lot of fun to shoot. It was about 4:30am, strong winds, full moon behind me and the clouds were moving fast! This was a five minute exposure with the Nikon D800 at 14mm. I miscalculated the aperture a bit so the original was underexposed by about 2 stops but I was amazed at how easy it was to recover detail in the shadows with this camera. I've gone back and forth between converting this to B&W, but settled on color for now just because I like how many colors the camera picked up in the sky... the orange glow is from the impending sunrise. Interested to hear any thoughts. Thanks.

Comments

15 comments

Comment posted by Vlad Sadovsky on October 17, 2012 at 8:24 PM

Superb Chris, much better looking with processing, especially the sky.

Registered on November 12, 2010, 48 Posts, 358 Comments

Comment posted by Nancy Lea Sandy on October 17, 2012 at 9:49 PM

Very dramatic and eye-catching. Love the energy in the sky above the dead tree. Nice work

Registered on January 24, 2011, 576 Posts, 6942 Comments

Comment posted by Cam Held on October 18, 2012 at 4:43 AM

I agree with the others, very nice! Perhaps its just my monitor, but the grasses at the bottom still appear a bit underexposed... Nice work bringing out detail in the darks though for the most part, I know what a pain that can be! Nice work!
-Cam

Registered on November 12, 2009, 59 Posts, 398 Comments

Comment posted by Nick Bristol on October 18, 2012 at 8:11 AM

A dramatic shot Chris, and nicely done too! I like this comp and the cloud motion works really nice here.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Registered on February 1, 2004, 752 Posts, 14140 Comments

Comment posted by Peyton Hale on October 18, 2012 at 11:03 AM

exceptional work Chris, love everything going on here.

Registered on December 9, 2011, 8 Posts, 43 Comments

Comment posted by Chris Moore on October 18, 2012 at 1:49 PM

Thanks, I left the grasses a little underexposed because there was some motion blur and I thought keeping it dark would prevent distracting from the main elements of the scene which are the tree and sky.

Registered on January 12, 2010, 84 Posts, 388 Comments

Comment posted by Oleg Kuchorenko on October 18, 2012 at 3:34 PM

looks interesting, even the stars are moving the same direction with the clouds! Great capture!
but FG looks a bit noise..

Registered on July 2, 2012, 9 Posts, 111 Comments

Comment posted by Scott Fricke on October 18, 2012 at 5:19 PM

Very dramatic, I like that you centered the tree with the clouds radiating out above.

Registered on January 19, 2007, 133 Posts, 1448 Comments

Comment posted by James Fougère on October 18, 2012 at 6:00 PM

Nice capture! I am not sure how it would look if you corrected the tilt of the horizon? Nice detail and contrasty clouds. I am not sure if I would keep the star streaks, I may clone them out. But that is personal preference

I know this exact spot, a very cool place

Registered on October 25, 2010, 41 Posts, 831 Comments

Comment posted by Chris Moore on October 18, 2012 at 6:19 PM

Thanks, James. As you know the hill in the background is downward sloping, so I tried to keep the horizon level as best I could. I thought about cloning out the stars, but wanted to keep some evidence that this was taken at night.

Registered on January 12, 2010, 84 Posts, 388 Comments

Comment posted by Harley Goldman on October 18, 2012 at 6:21 PM

Very dramatic and great colors. I would consider cloning out the star streaks and maybe a little CCW rotation, but real nice image.

Registered on November 19, 2003, 586 Posts, 11271 Comments

Comment posted by James Fougère on October 18, 2012 at 7:15 PM

It is a great image either way

In a situation like this, even though taking a 30 sec exposure for the stars, and just paint them in is "unrealistic" with cloud streaks like this, but the pin point stars would "look" better IMO

I cannot wait to try out my D800E shortly. It is amazing for low light considering you pushed these raw's to the limit "2 stops"! I am not sure if it will hold up to print, but looks great here!

Registered on October 25, 2010, 41 Posts, 831 Comments

Comment posted by Chris Moore on October 18, 2012 at 9:53 PM

Thanks, James, I get what you mean about the pinpoint stars, just didn't think of it at the time. This was shot at ISO 125, and there is absolutely no noise in the tree after bumping up two stops, so I think the print will be fine, I'm going to make some test prints soon. My main concern with this image was the color balance- what you see is pretty close to the AWB raw file, but sometimes when I look at it I see too much warmth, other times too much magenta, and other times it looks just right. No one made any mention of that, so I guess it's ok. Maybe I just need to not look at it for a few days

Registered on January 12, 2010, 84 Posts, 388 Comments

Comment posted by James Fougère on October 19, 2012 at 1:09 AM

I am using a calibrated monitors, on a Mac with the latest operating system with the recent version of Safari, and the colors look dead on to me, I hardly see much magenta in the clouds, I like the warmth near the horizon, in contrast to the deep blues of the night sky