Slot Canyon Light Beam

[Mike Landwehr]

You can look at a thousand photos of the slot canyons, but can not fully appreciate their beauty until you experience them yourself. This image is from the most-visited of the slot canyons--the Upper Antelope. It is an HDR of three images, tweaked with NIK Detail Enhancer (50%), Curves Linear Contrast, a Shadows/Highlights adjustment to open up the shadows a bit, and full frame with no sharpening. Any suggestions appreciated.

1D Mark IV
16-35 f/2.8 II at 25 mm
ISO 200
1/10 sec, .4 sec, 1.6 sec at f/16
Tripod

[Diane Miller]

Suggestions? Frame it! I love how you framed the rocks to swirl up.

I always wish the pool of light in these images weren't so bright, but it's a huge dynamic range to try to tame.

[Morkel Erasmus]

I love seeing these images. The vertical composition works a treat here, Mike, and I love how the light plays off the rock face all around the shaft.
I too feel the area where the light hits the ground is overcooked - high dynamic range for sure, but did you perhaps take another exposure specifically for this area, say underexposed by 3-4 stops that you can use to blend back in there?

[Andrew McLachlan]

A lovely comp with great details throughout. Agree with Morkel on the blown out light on the floor of the canyon. Looking forward to more.

[Don Railton]

Hi Mike

I love these shots... they are always exceptionally beautiful and this no exception:S3:. Well done.. I too find the hot spot on the ground a big distraction and not a focal point so I would tame if possible. My other suggestion is that I would have preferred the line along the edge of the rock on the LHS was not broken, but I think I have read space is limited at this location so compositional freedom to do that may have been limited. I saw a similar image in B&W that was sold for millions, might be another suggestion to look at..

DON

[Lyle Gruby]

Love the comp., and I love the slot canyons--I however hate the amount of people that were there when I was! I hope you didn't have to fight too many people off for this shot. My only crit is that the near canyon walls seem a little more red than I remember, otherwise, I agree with Diane--Frame It!

[Mike Landwehr]

The orange walls may be a bit bright. NIK Detail Enhancer tends to lighten and brighten, and I didn't make any effort to tone it back down. The image was taken in early May, a year ago. The canyon was full of visitors. I was in a group of seven, including five serious photographers, and I think we had the best guide in the canyon. The light beams don't last long, and there are several rooms where they appear. When the time came for the light beams, the guide started leading our group through the canyon. There isn't much room in the canyon. We would position ourselves where directed (a few of us standing, and the rest kneeling or sitting in front of those who stood), set up for a shot, and our guide would then stop all traffic into and out of that area long enough for us to get our shot. With the longer exposures, and bracketing, we often had time for only one or two sets of images before the traffic into the area resumed, and the area filled with tourists and their smart phone cameras. Morkel's idea to take an additional underexposed shot for the hotspot on the canyon floor is a good one. If I were to return to the canyon, I'd give it a try (when time permitted). This image is full frame, and I would also like to see it just a bit wider, but suspect that I was trying to avoid the sky, or a bright area, at the top of the image, which would presented additional exposure problems.

[Dave Mills]

Nice image Mike! The comp is good along with exposure. I've been at Antelope on 3 different occasions. That very bright area is blown out naturally with hardly any detail in that area. One would be hard pressed to pull any out.
Also as stated the photographer has a very limited amount of time to shoot longer exposures. In most areas the passageway is narrow and people have to wait to get by you if your tripod is blocking the way. Most of the time your shooting upward though.

[Diane Miller]

You already have a normal exposure of the sand floor. It isn't hard to use it to "burn down" the bright area. It's a little trickier than cloning, but you have enough material to do a good job.

I copied an adjacent area of the sand to a new layer, moved it over the bright spot and added a layer mask and masked out (black brush) everything but the bright area. Then I did a Curves layer and clipped it to that layer so only it was affected. I pulled up the middle slider to increase exposure and pulled in the lower left edge to increase contrast. Then I went to the color channels in the Curves dialog and pulled down the center of the red and blue channels just a little to make the color look right.

A quick and dirty effort but you get the idea. A little cloning could make it seamless.


BTW, you have the AdobeRGB profile attached. sRGB is the choice for the most accurate representation with the widest range of monitors and browsers. The web is its own special little world for color. Certainly for printing you would want to keep your master file in AdobeRGB.

[Mike Landwehr]

You've made a huge improvement to the image, Diane! You used some techniques which are beyond my current PS skill set, but I think I can duplicate what you've done by following your direction. I'm certainly going to try! I'll message you if I get hung up in the process.

And, thanks for pointing out the AdobeRGB color profile. I was surprised to learn that profile was attached, as I generally try to keep everything in sRGB. I did a little checking, and found that I must have unintentionally switched profiles during the Photomatix step in the process. The brighter AdobeRGB oranges have more impact, but the more subtle sRGB oranges are probably closer to reality (in this image).

Again, thanks for taking the time to reprocess the image, and to provide the tutorial, Diane. It's greatly appreciated!

[dankearl]

Diane's repost is terrific.
It takes the image to another level.

[Don Lacy]

Love the detail and tones in the wall Diane fixed the only issue with the image . In manual mode you should be ables to quickly shoot off a series of images at different exposures going one stop at a time. Antelope Canyon is on to do soon list.

[Grady Weed]

I agree with Don above. Stupendous image! Frame it. Well done. I want to go there and get my own image of this place. TFS.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Never late to any post, especially this striking image, Mike. Amazing textures and light. I agree Diane's work and tutorial have addressed the exposure in the sand floor.




Geoffrey