View from the rock

[Rudi van den Heever]

We just returned from an awesome trip to Giant's Castle in the Drakensberg range of South Africa. This is the view from the famous rock where the cape griffon and bearded vultures land, while we photograph them from a hide.

I think it did not turn out too bad for an image taken at 11H00...

Image merged in CS6 from 4 single exposure portrait orientated images.
Equipment: Canon 7D and 10-22mm lens at 16mm
Settings: 1/80s at f18 and ISO 100

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Rudi, overall a nice scene captured here and I would agree with you that it did turn out well for the time of day taken. I like the placement of the clouds within the comp but I am wanting to see more of the rocks along the bottom edge...do you have some extra room there that may have been cropped off?...sometimes the best vantage points do leave us in precarious situations where we have to make some compromises and it looks like you may have been on the edge of another rock given the terrain here. TFS

[Don Railton]

Hi Rudi. Nice image although not so sure about that black line through the middle.. I think it might have been nicer without that but maybe a lot more difficult image to get without that line...? I like especially the clouds and the sky, but I wonder about the lighter blue sky area on the upper RHS. Is that real or did you use different processing parameters on the various images used in this composite? DON

[James Fuller]

Light looks great for this time of day. The image looks like it could use a touch of clockwise rotation to me?

[Rudi van den Heever]

Thanks for the feedback guys! It is much appreciated!

The image was taken from the edge of the cliff on a rock which is rather famous for its vulture landings! The black line is actually a road Don and the lighter blue sky on the right is because of the sun - all the images were processed identically in LR4 before stitched in CS6 and I did not even use a polarizer, to ensure an even color and contrast range throughout the final image...

Must agree that some more rocks at the bottom would have been great!

[Andrew Aveley]

Great work Rudi , I can feel the updraft from the valley and the sound of the wind.........man that is a spectacular place !

[Rudi van den Heever]

Thanks Andrew! Awesome indeed!

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice pano-stitch here Rudi - light well handled for the time of day. I personally try to avoid shooting landscapes in this kind of light but sometimes it works out decently (especially if there's some overcast cloud cover).

[Anette Mossbacher]

Very nice 4x image ( s ) :bg3: For the time of the day very nice handled. Not easy to do. Had my thingy with that in Namibia on the road from one stop to the other :c3: