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Morkel Erasmus
11-26-2010, 06:14 PM
I created this image on a recent trip to the Giant's Castle region of the South African Drakensberg.

It was a lovely morning - yet some more dramatic cloud cover would have been very welcome :(.

This is a blend of 2 exposures. All critique welcome...

Techs:
Canon 7D with 10-22mm USM
f16 @ ISO-100

Marc Mol
11-26-2010, 06:19 PM
I love the dynamic range you managed in just 2 exp's here Morkel, beautiful arid colouring.
More cloud cover would have enhanced for sure, but like as presented.
TFS

Morkel Erasmus
11-26-2010, 06:22 PM
thanks Marc...this area is probably now lush and green as this was shot right at the end of Winter...:)

Roman Kurywczak
11-27-2010, 09:44 AM
Hey Morkel,
I like the comp here with the boulder balancing the bush and even the hills. I think the shadow line intersecting the rock...almost in line with the top draws my eye a bit too much.....so did you take one a few minutes later? Just the way the shadow lines up is somewhat bothersome. Nice job with the blend though and did you get to do any of the vultures?

Dennis "Curly" Buchner
11-27-2010, 10:22 AM
Nice balanced image , the river running though really helps, nice job. Did you get a diifernt angle with the rock to the left and the river running though the whole image?

Dave Mills
11-27-2010, 11:48 AM
Hi Morkel, nice light but IMO the foreground totally overpowers the image being hard to get past the rock and bush. My eye cannot help going back to it. I like Dennis' idea regarding the rock on the left and showing the whole river.

Morkel Erasmus
11-27-2010, 03:46 PM
thanks for the kind comments Roman, Dave & Curly...

I wasn't able to get a perspective with the large boulder to the LHS since this was the edge of a precipice... :(

I also couldn't wait for later light with regards to the shadow as we had to pack up and head to our next destination. I unfortunately didn't get a place in the vulture hide, which is why I staked out the landscapes.

Andrew McLachlan
11-27-2010, 09:06 PM
Hi Morkel, this looks like a very nice location. I like the way you composed this one, but agree with Roman regarding the shadow line and rock. I wonder if you punched up the contrast a bit on the distant mountains would the foreground be less over-powering as Dave mentions. Overall I still like the image though.

Robert Amoruso
11-28-2010, 08:16 AM
I like the composition and placement of the rock and bush. And Roman caught the shadow line interesting the rock so I can't beat you up for that Morkel :p.

Andrew had a good suggestion on increasing contrast on the BG.

To me I would have liked to see sharpness from front to back - even if you had the focus stack two images to get it.

Morkel Erasmus
11-28-2010, 04:20 PM
thanks for the comments Andrew & Robert...

Robert - the image is sharp right through at large size, I might have just been selective with sharpening after resizing due to the size of the image? :D