Cathedral Lake Reflection

[chris Bycroft]

In August-September last year I visited the United States and walked the John Muir Trial with a Canon 7D and three lenses. After coming back with quite a large number of photos it has taken me some time to get them sorted. I thought I might put some up on here for comments. This one was taken from Lower Cathedral Lake in Yosemite National Park in the early morning (7:37 am). The sun was rising behind Cathedral Peak, making a sunstar effect. Details are;

Canon 7D
EF-S 18-200 mm lens
Focal Length 18 mm
1/640 sec at f9.0
No Tripod, too heavy for 200 plus miles of walking.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Chris, pleasing scene with a nice starburst peeking over the mountains. The exposure seems to be handled well with detail in both the sunlit and shaded areas. A few things...I would have not included the clipped shoreline on the LL and I would of tried to offset the rock a bit further. Finally, the trees look a bit oversaturated...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Chris,
Agree with Dave's assesment.......although I'd imagine the trees were a bit dark given the SS. I'm surprised you got that good of a sunburst at f9.....I like where you placed it. Did you happen to try a 2 exposure blend......say one at this exposure for the lit areas and one at say f16 and 1/200 sec.? Plenty of SS for hand holding and it may allowed you to blend the 2 exposures a bit more easily and with more natural results. Just an option to keep in mind for next time out! That was some trek!

[Harshad Barve]

pleasing image , agreed with above comments
TFS

[chris Bycroft]

Thanks for the comments. The saturation seemed to come in when downsizing it in photoshop, as it does not seem to be there in lightroom. I will take better care of that in future, thank for the advise here. I may try Roman's suggestion of blending two images.

[Robert Amoruso]

Chris,

I having only one image of the scene, process one for the FG lighter areas and one for the FG darker ares and blend the two but layering and masking.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Chris, a very nice scene with the sunburst placed nicely. Agree with above suggestions.

[Gerald_Gilligan]

Hey Chris,

I hiked up there last June in one day and had a heck of a time as there wasn't a trail and plenty of snow...

This is about a 3 mile hike up and it is worth the effort when you get up there...I had the same skies with out the clouds.

I will agree with the saturation comment but I hope that you have many more to post here...

Jerry