Posted by Scott Borger on March 4, 2006 at 7:15 PM
PHOTO: Here's a shot from this morning's Mt. Quandary hike. High winds were overwhelming, but I was able to shoot with aperature wide open during a rare calming in the wind. Suggestions and criticism are always welcome on any of my photos.
TRIP: Couldn't find a partner, so I threw out the idea of catching the sunrise from atop the peak at some rediculous hour. I decided to hike Q anyway. As it turns out, there were three of us early hikers on the mountain- each about 1/4 to 1/2 mile apart. We all used snowshoes, no skis/boards. I believe I was 2nd to summit. The weather was a total mystery to me: Blue skies, constant 50-80 mph side/head winds (above tree line) with gusts exceeding 100mph (A few of them knocked me over). My thermometer read -9 at the summit (not including the windchill). By the time I reached Hwy 9 I was burning up. I guess that's CO weather for you. Finally, I did see the the infamous Quandary dog (Horton?) following one of the later hikers.
Posted by Scott Borger on March 4, 2006 at 7:20 PM
I'm blown away. My only question is that the image on my calibrated display has a slight non-natural looking color shift .I think my catch may be in the sky somewhere. Definitely correctable.
Awesome stuff. Looks like Mr Brauer has some competetion. Now we just gotta get Scott a LF Camera
RichieV
Posted by Scott Borger on March 4, 2006 at 8:14 PM
LF? Hmmm... How about a new pair of legs. Mine are spent. The color shift happened as a result of an RGB profiled image on the web (rather than sRGB). The real version looks legit.
Nah, We just need to get him a 5D and couple of TS lenses, wait a minute...that' what I want!
I'm trying to find the color shift that Rich is seeing - is it the "greyish" area on the right side sky?? Other than that my eye isn't good enough to see it.
Nice shot Scott!
Thanks for the trip report - well done! I like the shot a lot. Using the snow-filled wind break as a lead-in speaks to the isolation of winter. Q is notorious for wind - It's cool that you pushed on.
Nice going Scott, not sure I would have put up with a wind like that, so kudos to you for a hard working summit. Nice image too. Maybe when its a little warmer I'll have to join you on one of your fourteener jaunts. ..................J
Kudos to you for enduring the winds and capturing a sweet shot to boot! It does look like there's a bit of a cyan cast, noticeable to me in the rocks and the mid-ground snow. No biggie as Rich said.
Nice work - getting there and getting the image!
Posted by Scott Borger on March 5, 2006 at 4:41 PM
I took a look at the original RAW file and it has the same colors as this picture that I posted (with the auto settings checked in PS). I'll edit again without any of the auto boxes checked and see if I can't get it to look right. I'm beginning to see the color shift myself. Thanks for poining that out.
Scott - could be the white balance setting on the camera. My D70 was unpredictable in Auto mode; snow seemed to be worse, or maybe it was just easier to see the effects on white snow. At any rate, I used to pick one setting based on lighting conditions and left it there. That way if adjustments needed to be made, I could make the same one adjustment on all pics. Fortuantely, the D2X seems to be much less flaky when it comes to WB.
I spy with my trained eye (L-to-R) Lincoln, Cameron, Democrat, and off in the distance, Elbert and Massive. That's probably La Plata to the left of Elbert, too.
In other words, GREAT detail in this fabulous shot!
Absolutely gorgeous, Scott! I'm with Rick on the white balance issue; it's probably not something you can adjust with a camera WB preset - it looks like it's an "in-between" custom color temperature. It's the micro-adjustments like this that tend to catch the D2X up a bit, too.
Todd... I concur with your assessment. Visible is the "nub-like" summit of Lincoln, the small saddle between it and Cameron, then the more dramatic saddle between Cameron and Democrat. Massive is in the distance, right side of frame, looking... well massive. Not sure about La Plata, but you are the expert!
The first time both Jason Parslow and I attempted to climb Quandary was a winter attempt. Same weather that you experienced. Unfortunately we should've expected the wind. It was one of those Chinook wind days along the Front-Range/I-25 corridor... Real toasty in the Springs, with a big fat low pressure center over the eastern plains. All this added up to the 80-100mph winds racing over the central mountains. We actually turned around before the last rise to the summit, only to bag it in the summer. :)
Jason Parslow has some really nice B/W shots of some snow strata and cornices from that trip though. If happens to check this thread, I hope he posts them.
Incidentally, we ran into the "Quandary dog" when we hiked it in the summer time as well.
Discussion
14 repliesTRIP: Couldn't find a partner, so I threw out the idea of catching the sunrise from atop the peak at some rediculous hour. I decided to hike Q anyway. As it turns out, there were three of us early hikers on the mountain- each about 1/4 to 1/2 mile apart. We all used snowshoes, no skis/boards. I believe I was 2nd to summit. The weather was a total mystery to me: Blue skies, constant 50-80 mph side/head winds (above tree line) with gusts exceeding 100mph (A few of them knocked me over). My thermometer read -9 at the summit (not including the windchill). By the time I reached Hwy 9 I was burning up. I guess that's CO weather for you. Finally, I did see the the infamous Quandary dog (Horton?) following one of the later hikers.
I'm blown away. My only question is that the image on my calibrated display has a slight non-natural looking color shift .I think my catch may be in the sky somewhere. Definitely correctable.
Awesome stuff. Looks like Mr Brauer has some competetion. Now we just gotta get Scott a LF Camera
RichieV
I'm trying to find the color shift that Rich is seeing - is it the "greyish" area on the right side sky?? Other than that my eye isn't good enough to see it.
Nice shot Scott!
Thanks for the trip report - well done! I like the shot a lot. Using the snow-filled wind break as a lead-in speaks to the isolation of winter. Q is notorious for wind - It's cool that you pushed on.
Dave Showalter
Nice work - getting there and getting the image!
In other words, GREAT detail in this fabulous shot!
The first time both Jason Parslow and I attempted to climb Quandary was a winter attempt. Same weather that you experienced. Unfortunately we should've expected the wind. It was one of those Chinook wind days along the Front-Range/I-25 corridor... Real toasty in the Springs, with a big fat low pressure center over the eastern plains. All this added up to the 80-100mph winds racing over the central mountains. We actually turned around before the last rise to the summit, only to bag it in the summer. :)
Jason Parslow has some really nice B/W shots of some snow strata and cornices from that trip though. If happens to check this thread, I hope he posts them.
Incidentally, we ran into the "Quandary dog" when we hiked it in the summer time as well.