Early morning light - Shenandoah National Park

[Tim Rucci]

I captured this image at 5:24am in Shenandoah National Park while waiting for the sunrise. I was there photographing deer fawns for the first 4 days of a recent 12 day trip.

IMAGE DETAILS: Canon 40d with 28-135 lens at 28mm, 1/80 sec at f3.5, iso 200, -1EV

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Tim,
Can't believe you were with Conger and you took a landscape shot :D! You have nice colors and layers of the mtns. I do understand the tree on the left but in this case it puts the image a bit out of balance. You may have been better off creating this with the longer focal length and concentrate more on the mtn. layers and color. Had there been more clouds in the sky........then the original comp would have been fine as the tree wouldn't be all alone and so dominant in the sky. You can crop it out and some off the top for the same effect. Now I have to see if Ken took some landscape shots!

[Robert Amoruso]

At first I did not see what Roman is referring too as I will look at the images and form my own conclusion before reading the other comments if applicable. But I think he is correct in that the tree is very prominent in the FG and competes more with the BG then compliments it. I find my eyes focusing on the tree then the BG then the tree.

I tried a crop as Roman suggested and find that much more pleasing. Also as Roman suggested, a lot of clouds in the sky would have balanced with the tree and allowed its inclusion more.

[Tim Rucci]

Thanks Robert and Roman for your comments and suggestions. I didn't see what Roman saw at first glance either, but now I'm looking at and trying to decide. I looked back at the other photos from that morning, and I did shot some without the tree, but they were all afer the sunrise rather than before it. When standing there, I really liked the silhouette of the tree against the early morning sky, and that is basically what I was trying to capture.

Roman - you make me laugh with your comment about how I could have possibly gotten a landscape shot if Ken was there. How true! This photo was made on Monday morning, and Ken left to go back home on Sunday afternoon. However, he did go to shoot some sunsets with us from the same spot a day or two earlier, and a bear come out of the woods behind us and crossed the road and went into the woods in front of us to the left of what you see in this image. It happened so fast that I didn't even see it. I picked up my big rig and moved to see if I could get a glimpse of the bear, but he was gone.

Ken does always comment that he's NOT a 'landscape guy". Ken and I met about 5 years ago and have been doing a birding trip pretty much every spring in Florida. We have a great time doing that and we have always found some really good shooting spots. Funny story; this year at Joe Overstreet, we got there early one morning and found that two guys had picked up some road-kill on their way, and actually brought it with them to try and attract birds. They had thrown it out in the area near the fence where people wait for snail kites. No way I would take something like that in my car....

Ken has travelled to some great places all over the world collecting stunning wildlife images. I've learned a lot from him.

[Paul Marcellini]

I think in this instance the tree needed to be more prominent(like in portrait) or not at all. Love the layers and the nice glow. You got some great suggestions already.

[David Kennedy]

Tim,
I'm noticing a considerable amount of noise and horizontal banding in this image. Did you have to adjust the exposure slider in the RAW file by a large margin in your post-processing? That would at least be one possible explanation for such noise in an ISO 200 file from a fairly noise-less camera.

[Tim Rucci]

Thanks for your comment, David. I made a shadow/highlight adjustment to the bottom part of the photo, to bring out the layers of hte mountains and the fog a little better. That may be what you are seeing.