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Diane Miller
09-13-2015, 09:32 PM
Northern California is on fire again. Six day ago I drove across the Sierra Nevada between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite, hoping to do some astrophotography at a fairly high elevation east of Bridgeport. As I was driving up a fire started NW of Yosemite and in the next 2-3 days, several more along the western slopes. So I had smoky skies, and more clouds than forecast. Got in one abbreviated night's star shooting, before the target area sunk into the gloom of the western horizon. So Plan B got me up early a coupe of mornings to look for sunrise light on the mountains. That was largely shot down with hazy skies, too, but I'll toss this one out for whatever interest it may have. Did a lot of work to bring out detail -- the raw file was very flat.

Canon 5D3, 100-400 II at 400, tripod, pano of two assembled in LR CC (does a great job and gives you a true raw file to adjust). ISO 1600, 1/500 at f/7.1. Don't ask me why I went for 1600 -- it was early and cold and I think my brain was on hold. The camera would have been on 1600 for the previous night's astro shooting so I guess I forgot to check it. Went into PS for some more tonal stretching beyond what I could get in LR, mostly Nik's Detail Extractor. This goes a little beyond what I remember that it looked like.

I was surprised at the amount of fine detail I captured, which doesn't really show here -- didn't do any sharpening beyond the LR default and no Structure.

Second Prize was some nice hawks and Meadow Larks in soft light on funky fence posts along the road to this location. Maybe I had already seen them and wanted to be ready when the light came up a little -- who can remember what they do before the sun comes up....

Don Railton
09-13-2015, 11:30 PM
What a wonderful mountain range and I am impressed by the detail captured Diane.. I see a slight (greenish?) halo over the center FG ridgeline.. Not sure if thats smoke or not..

DON

Diane Miller
09-13-2015, 11:35 PM
Good catch, Don. That's some sloppy masking. The FG ridge was way too dark when I darkened the mountains so I lightened it with a masked Curve and killed some of the red. Will fix it -- thanks!

David Cowling
09-15-2015, 11:59 AM
Nice morning light and good detail on the mountain range. The camera and your processing have dealt well with the high ISO. My eye is searching for somewhere to rest as a focal point but I guess it's difficult with this sort of scenery.

Rachel Hollander
09-15-2015, 07:11 PM
Hi Diane - A nice mountain range/ridge and the smoky skies add a little interest. Good catch by Don. For me it feels like it is lacking something. I would expect more contrast and a darker fg with the light hitting the peaks. For me, the fg seems to have been lifted a bit too much. I did a quick rp but may have gone a little too far. I also dropped the blues and darkened the greens in HSL layer. WDYT?

TFS,
Rachel

Andrew McLachlan
09-15-2015, 07:34 PM
Hi Diane...lovely mountain range...the original post appears a touch flat to me...perhaps the smoke?...Rachel's repost works better for my tastes with the added contrast...very nicel composed with just the right amount of foreground on the bottom edge...lovely!

Diane Miller
09-15-2015, 08:24 PM
Thanks everyone!

That works, Rachel! The file as it came into the raw converter was SO flat (as was the scene, to my eyes) that it's hard t know when to stop enhancing. Noise is usually the barrier. In clear skies it would look more like this older post, from last April: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/127765

I'll be reworking this one -- as soon as I finish with the hawks on wonderful old fence posts and the 1949 Dodge Durango pickup I found within about a two mile radius.