Half Dome

[Indranil Sircar]

This is from one of my recent trips just after the Glacier Point road had opened for visitors. We went up there late in the afternoon hoping for some dramatic light. There were plenty of moving clouds and the filtered sunlight created interesting light and shadow effect across the valley. I took this image just as cloud approached Half Dome and the filtered sunlight lit up a small patch of snow on top of the dome. The settings were -

7D, 17-40mm @ 40mm on Gitzo/Giottos with grad ND and cable release
1/30 sec, f/22 Mode: Manual, ISO: 200

For processing, adjusted for selective colors and applied additional curve on the sky to get more details. All c&c will be appreciated.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Indranil,
A classic! I really like the light and comp. I do think you can tweak this......mostly in the sky to bring out the depth in the clouds.....(maybe in selective color on the whites, neutrals, and blacks?)......just be careful of the cloud above 1/2 dome! Come to think of it....try a LCE of 20/25/0 first......then see if that is too much and adjust the sliders for optimum results. All in all these are minor tweaks to take this to where it belongs. Very nicely done!!!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Indranil, very nice comp. Roman has made some good suggestions. I wonder if Nik's 'tonal contrast' applied to Half Dome might take this up another notch. Nice work!!

[dankearl]

Beautiful Indranil, very sharp and i like the exposure a lot, kind of moody.

[John Ippolito]

Roman and Andrew have good points on this lovely image. Beautiful composition, tones and clouds. The mood is very nice on this!

[Indranil Sircar]

Thanks all, I appreciate it. I finally had the opportunity to work on the image based on Roman's suggestions. I went back to the drawing board and redid the workflow. I could get the depth by adjusting the whites and neutral using selective colors. Also, applied LCE and reverse s-curve...