PDA

View Full Version : Monument Valley at Twilight



David Kennedy
05-02-2008, 08:50 PM
Canon 5D and 70-200mm f/4L @ 70mm
11 vertical images exposed 1/5 sec. @ f/10, ISO 400
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Utah
Stitched in Autopano Pro

A little wider than I normally aim for, but that's what seemed to fit the situation best. All comments welcome!

Jim Neely
05-03-2008, 07:37 PM
Monument Valley is one of my favorite places. I envy you the opportunity to create such a nice image. I'm undecided about the close in foreground on the right, but overall, I really like the image.

jn

Robert Amoruso
05-03-2008, 08:04 PM
David,

Beautiful image. I like the composition left to right and top (nice transition of colors in it). On the bottom I would like to see the two FG boulders. Have stood there I know them well and long to see more at the bottom.

Jeffrey Sipress
05-03-2008, 08:35 PM
Soft and sweet. Wonderful sky. Very nice!

David Kennedy
05-04-2008, 10:59 PM
Jim, Robert, and Jeffrey:
Thank you for your input. I was initially uncertain about the tight foreground/cutting of the rocks, but I did a few images out there and this was the one that I liked the best. I think the reason for cutting the rocks was a bush growing to the left of the left rock (a mouthful), and I just didn't like it very much. Cutting this way enabled me to get the rocks and eliminate the distracting element......but I know, I know: QUICK MASK and you can have the best of both worlds! :D

PS No one picked on my personal nit on this one, which is the road in the center of the image. It must not as distracting as I expected.

Michael Pancier
05-05-2008, 08:01 AM
one of my next must see visits. How do you like Autopano? I've been using the photomerge in CS 3 cause I've not gotten anything else to work well.

david cramer
05-05-2008, 11:20 AM
You captured the soft lighting of twilight very well. I also find the foreground to be not quite right (incomplete?) having taken from that location. But then, you have seen the other options you came back with. The road doesn't bother me, probably because I'm used to seeing it in MV panos.

David Kennedy
05-05-2008, 12:32 PM
one of my next must see visits. How do you like Autopano? I've been using the photomerge in CS 3 cause I've not gotten anything else to work well.

I've been using Autopano for two years....or close to two years, I can't remember exactly when I started using it, but it was in 2006. Before that I used RealViz Stitcher Express. Autopano allowed me to stitch 16-bit images, and its stitching seemed to be more accurate, so I switched. (CS2's Photomoerge had already proven to be a bit of a joke.)

Since then, I've tried the Photomerge in CS3 and have been impressed. For one thing, it retains the metadata of the original files, which is something that Autopano does not. However, Photoshop doesn't do a very good job of telling you how far along it is in a given stitching operation. It just kind of locks itself up and you get to be "surprised" when it's finished. I would say that the results are very comparable, although Autopano might still do a slightly better job with smoothing out any differences in tonality across the final image.

I'm sticking to Autopano for the bulk of my stitching jobs because I return from these trips with a lot of panos to put together, and Autopano's batch stitching abilities are great. As long as you baby-sit it for the beginning phase, where you can tell it you'd rather see a sperical or cylindrical or flat projection, crop it, etc., you can then tell it to run the stitching jobs and leave the computer alone for a couple of hours. When you come back, they're done. (Fresh out of the oven!) Cheers,
David

David Kennedy
05-05-2008, 12:33 PM
You captured the soft lighting of twilight very well. I also find the foreground to be not quite right (incomplete?) having taken from that location. But then, you have seen the other options you came back with. The road doesn't bother me, probably because I'm used to seeing it in MV panos.

The foreground is something I'll have to think about some more. Your comment re: the road is reassuring. Thank you!

Roman Kurywczak
05-05-2008, 02:50 PM
I Know the area well David.........did you take any with those big FG rocks???.........they may have been overpowering had you included them and I find you did a great job in separating the mittens and the other butte. i find the road........especially in the center of the 2 rocks adds to the image.........because if you hadn't included it.......i would be wondering where it was as it is visible on the right side. IMO very well done!

David Kennedy
05-05-2008, 03:37 PM
I Know the area well David.........did you take any with those big FG rocks???

Yup. This one :D

Roman Kurywczak
05-05-2008, 03:55 PM
Not just top part..........the whole rock???

PS I did say it would probably unbalance the image!

Ed Cordes
05-11-2008, 09:11 PM
I like the overall effect. I have an image with the same FG rocks; they do add depth. However they look OOF and a bit hot in this image.