Rainier Ridge...later

[Jay R. Seltzer]

One more image from the trip to Mount Rainier National Park in August. By this time, the skies had cleared yielding some nice cumulus clouds. Again I used HDR with Photomatix which seems to give a more vivid look; almost too real.

10D 24-85mm at 58mm
1/180 sec at f/19 ISO 200 handheld.

Thanks for looking...

...Jay

[Fabs Forns]

I kow the pines are tilted in nature, but maybe a CW rotation would help. Great clouds and mood, but for me, I need a foreground to anchor the scene.
Remember landscapes benefit from foreground, mid-ground and background. If the pine trees were to qualify for a foreground, maybe less of them would work.

[Jay R. Seltzer]

Thanks Fabs, Now that you point it out, the pines do look tilted more that I recall on the scene. I rotated CW a little and cropped from below and I think it does indeed look better. It seems to show the pines as FG and the peak on the right in the middle and the left mountain as the BG.

Thanks...

... Jay

[Robert Amoruso]

Jay,

Your repost is more balanced. The original had the pines and mountains dividing the image almost in half (think static) and the repost is more dynamic looking.

[Travis Novitsky]

It does look almost "too real" overall, as you stated. I think with this image, though....its borderline. I've seen a lot of HDR images that were WAY over-done....I don't think yours is to that point. I would have taken this zoomed all the way in at 85mm with your lens, zooming in closer on that nice peak near the center of the frame....and would have shown equal parts sky and tree-lined ridge at the top and bottom of the frame. Those clouds are nice! The rotation that you performed looks good.