Sunrise at Many Glacier

[Rachel Hollander]

Taken from the balcony of our room at Many Glacier Lodge in Glacier National Park, Montana. I was experimenting with exposure bracketing for possible HDR images so the techs are off but I liked the result of this single frame (not HDR). I don't take many landscapes so thought I'd see what you all think.

Canon 50D
16-35 II @ 16mm
f2.8
1/3200
ISO 800
Exp comp -1.0
Tripod with remote release. Slight crop from bottom to remove unwanted top of bushes.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Robert Amoruso]

Rachel,

Let's tackle the exposure first. 50D on a tripod, don't use ISO 800. I would suggest 200 or even 100. ISO 200 would have given you 1/800 sec. shutter - still very fast. f/2.8; I suggest f/8 or f/11. At f/8 and ISO 200 your shutter speed is 1/50 second. This gives you much less noise and great DOF.

I like the horizontal composition and the fact the tallest peak is not in the center. I would have also like to have seen the camera rotated right to place the tallest peak in the left third of the image and the shorter right hand side peak in the right third - this gives you a ROT composition and a nice juxtaposition of the taller peak to shorter one.

Vertically, I like the top but would crop more; much more of the water out at the bottom - go for pano. The water is dark so we can't see much of the texture and the reflection is not too pleasing in any event. Best to concentrate on the peaks as they are the center of interest.

All in all you did well here and are on the right track. Thanks for posting.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Rachel, Agree with Robert's detailed suggestions. I would be curious to know why you shot this at F2.8 when you used a tripod. Due to the fstop the rt hand mountains look soft on my monitor.
Your a long distance away and could probably shot this at F8 or higher and had it sharp throughout.
The light is very nice and too bad you had a breeze since on a calm morning you would get a mirror reflection.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Rachel,
Great advice given above and I will add one more important tip for the future......the longer exposure time will also help smooth out the water ripples.....so just keep that in mind for next time out! Since you didn't get much reflection in the water....I would be tempted to crop a good bit of the water out.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks guys. It was very windy that morning so I wanted a faster shutter speed because the wind was actually stong enough to move the tripod but I didn't need it that fast. Thanks for the tips.

Rachel