Mount Egmont/Taranaki

[Don Railton]

Hello All
Another image from New Zealand. Morkel, you did say things seemsed a little quite and i am doing my best...

This mountain is claimed by the locals to be the 2nd most perfect Cone in the world to Mount Fuji in Japan. The mountain stands all alone and close to the coast which means the weather changes very quickly on its slopes. This makes it quite dangerous as you can drive to 5000' and in a short walk put yourself into a situation suited only experianced climbers with the right gear. I have climbed it 19 times during my early years, would like to do it at least 1 more time. I spent 3 days in a search & rescue mission on this mountain looking for a guy that just parked his car up the mountain then hitched a ride to the opposite coast in NZ....! He said nothing. The scene is very typical of the province of Taranaki, where dairy farming is mostly practiced, and many tourists visit but mostly the mountain is covered in cloud and they go away dissapointed...

My inital shot had the peak of the mountain in the upper RH third, but I though 'too much sky' and so I cropped a little from the top. I am now thinking 'too much green foreground' but what do you think..

1D4 + 50mm 1.4
iso 100, 1/80 sec @ F20 on Tripod
manual mode, eval metering.

levels and curves & selective colour to remove blue cast, all done in CS6

Don

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Don - a nice scene and I agree with you about too much green in the fg. I would crop some from the bottom to a pano crop. This triggers a nice memory for me of my flight between Auckland and Nelson on Air NZ. The mountain was out and looking beautiful so the pilots told us to get our cameras out. They then circled the cone for all to take photos.

TFS,
Rachel

[Don Railton]

Thanks Rachel, and congratulations again on you win...!

Very obliging those Air NZ pilots, now that's a photo opportunity I have not had that I would love to experience... I hope there was a little more snow on top than seen here, this makes a big difference to how the mountain looks in my opinion..

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Don and yes, there was more snow. When the pilots heard we were from NYC they invited me to sit in the jump seat for the last 10 minutes of the flight. An amazing experience!

[Don Railton]

You are blessed...!

[Roger Clark]

Hi Don,
Nice image, well exposed and sharp. I agree witht the crop off the bottom. The only other things that would improve the image is more snow, and imaging when the sun is lower. A polarizer might have cut some of the haze.

Roger

[Don Railton]

Thanks Roger...

I agree completely, snow would make a huge difference. Even thought of adding some in PS but thought no..stay pure photos...

Unfortunately I dident think of removing the polariser off my wide angle and just holding it in front of the 50mm lens I used, I agree, that would have helped also..

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice peaceful scene of what looks like a nice part of NZ...a country I really would like to visit one day...
The light wasn't doing you any favours here...:e3...I'd crop from the bottom and perhaps play around with a contrasty monochrome version?

[Don Railton]

Good Ideal Morkel...Thanks! I have a go at that. I think you would like NZ. Its an outdoorsy sort of place which I think is right up your alley. No big animals however, other than All Blacks, and they are well protected in NZ. A an aside, my daughter climbed this mountain about 10 days after I took this shot in similar sort of conditions as in Photo. Cant wait to see those images...

DON