Colorado Wildflowers

[Roger Clark]

Wildflowers in the Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness of Colorado

The summer of 2009 turned out to be a spectacular year for wildflowers in the Colorado high country. This scene in the Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness north of Crested Butte. near tree line shows an amazing density and variety of wildflowers. Building thunder clouds provided diffuse light and excellent color.


Canon 5D Mark II camera with 28-135 IS lens at 28 mm, 1/30 second at f/16, ISO 100, 2-frame mosaic

[Ramesh Adkoli]

A very beautiful image, Roger. IMO, a minor improvement could have been to limit the sky to a minimum to retain the viewers attention to the colorful flowers. TFS.

regards,
ramesh

[Jay Gould]

Outstanding! Sharp top to bottom; edge to edge. Where was your point of focus?

Your images are an inspiration, and always provide the basis for pushing one's self to meet your standards.

[Morkel Erasmus]

just love the lines, depth and peppy colours in this one Roger! well seen and stitched.

[Kyle Marie Barcelos]

Beautiful! IMO I would take just a little off the top that dark cloud right in the middle is catching my eye and I rather look at the rest of that gorgeous landscape. Great job :)

[Roger Clark]

Hi Jay,

Thanks. When I do mosaics, I let the focus point change with each frame, but keep the same exposure (manual). The lower image had the focus toward the bottom of the frame, about 1/4 of the way from top to bottom. The upper frame had the focus at infinity. I knew at f/16 the depth of field would give a good overlap (checked with live view zoomed in).

Roger

[Roger Clark]

Thanks all for the comments. I agree a little about the cloud at top. The reason I decided to keep it was I think the clouds lower down are boring. They were thin and and do not have much character. So the cloud at top has a little character. I wish I did one more frame higher and one lower too. This was a quick grap shot (with tripod and pano head) and I should have spent a little more time. Merging of the mosaic was difficult because the wind was blowing and the flowers were moving. It took me a couple of hours of making a complicated blend line where there was no movement (I used ptgui with layers output).

Roger

[Rich Ikerd]

Beautiful image of the mountain wildflowers Roger. I like the inclusion of the distant background as it really sets the location of the scene well. The clouds aren't the best (seems to be a theme for a lot of us), but I think their inclusion gives good balance to the image. Exceptional job with the merging of the two images - haven't tried that type of merge (different focus points) yet. Might have to give it a try.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Roger,
While the sky isn't the most exciting......I still agree with the crop off the top.......this will only further focus our intentions on the wonderful wildflower fields. Cool technique too!

[Kobus Tollig]

Ditto Crop but still a very nice shot well done. Like the flowers

[Valerio Tarone]

Hi jay thediagonal line gives strenght and balance to the image.

[Roger Clark]

Interesting regarding the clouds. I thought everyone would complain about the yellow flower at the bottom edge, left center, that is cut off. ;)

Roger