Random Scenic Shots

[teotwaki]

Mount Rainier 2008

Ooooh! Camp Schurman is up there just over the tip of the band of rock that finishes just below the second peak to the right.


That is a long and steep ascent up that glacier approach. Kicked my butt in 2003 IIRC.

Is this picture from over on the White River area Corey?

[Corey]

Yep, one of my favorite places to rig camp at Mt. Rainier, the White River Campground.
Camped there a lot when my sons were wee little lads, and I went back up there in 2008 after getting the roof top tent.

Hiked a lot too long ago on the Wonderland Trail for a week at a time back in the 80s.

[teotwaki]

here is a shot without vehicles in it.....
Paria Canyon, Arizona. From this Memorial Day weekend, 3rd day

[Lost Canadian]

A couple from a yesterday and today. Shooting in bad weather may be challenging but it makes for good photographic opportunities.

[Wander]

Wow, nice work Trevor! Can you divulge a few secrets on the shots for those of us (me) absorbing as much as we can?

[Lost Canadian]

Sure.
Shot #1: Up at 4:30 am, hike 3 km in the rain, eat a granola bar along the way. LOL. In all seriousness though, once there, it was camera out, tripod mounted, with a 20mm, and a polarizer on and cranked to maximum polarization. I composed the shot, set the focus manually, and dialed in the aperture to F8. In this case I was shooting down off a ridge with some distance between me and the nearest elements in the shot. Like most lenses this lens shows best between 5.6-8. Considering the distance to the nearest element wasn't all that close and with the lens being a wide angle, F8 gave plenty of depth for this shot and allowed me to keep the lens close to its best aperture. Mirror up, remote released, 2 sec exposure. Once loaded into LR, I set the white balance, fine tuned the curves, pulled the saturation down a touch, and voila.

Shot #2: No hikes or early rises here, this is at about 4 in the afternoon with a storm moving in. I visualized this picture as a B&W before I took it and shot it accordingly. Same camera setup as the previous shot, 20mm, and tripod mounted. Here I used a polarizer but I backed it off about 50-75% until the water gave me enough reflection to emulate the curved shape of the cloud. Then I used a 2 stop hard edge grad over the sky. Mirror lock up, remote released, F11 at 1/25 sec. Once loaded into LR I set the white balance, and desaturated the image manually using the HSL panel (hue, saturation, luminance). I moved the luminace values around until I got the result I wanted, and again, voila. If I were to shoot this shot again I'd move a touch closer and get a bit higher to bring more reflection in to the front side of the rock. The cloud was moving pretty fast, and as is the case sometimes when dealing with nature in action, it can be difficult to think through the best position for every element.

Hope that helps.

[Wander]

Yeah it helps a lot, thanks! I admit I wish I understood it better-mostly the post work- but that is what I am starting to focus on to learn about.

[Lost Canadian]

Yeah it helps a lot, thanks! I admit I wish I understood it better-mostly the post work- but that is what I am starting to focus on to learn about.

Honestly, the post work is the easy part. The hard part is getting it right in the field. I made the early mistake, as I'm sure many new shooters in todays digital age do, of trying to rely on heavy post process and fancy digital filters to save crappy shots. It's like a movie with heavy special effects and no script, it overwhelms the senses at first but once you dig a little deeper you realize it's empty. If I can offer any advice it would be to focus on the shot first and not on what you'll be able to do to it later. Play, but don't rely.

[LaOutbackTrail]

Honestly, the post work is the easy part. The hard part is getting it right in the field. I made the early mistake, as I'm sure many new shooters in todays digital age do, of trying to rely on heavy post process and fancy digital filters to save crappy shots. It's like a movie with heavy special effects and no script, it overwhelms the senses at first but once you dig a little deeper you realize it's empty. If I can offer any advice it would be to focus on the shot first and not on what you'll be able to do to it later. Play, but don't rely.

X1000!
Great advise Trevor!

[ttora4runner]

Not really a scenic shot