Horseshoe Bend

[James Fuller]

Taken with a Nikon D800 and the 14-24mm lens @14mm. Processing included Lightroom, Photomatix, and Photoshop.

Comments appreciated!

[Don Railton]

Hi James

Quite spectacular scenery you have captured here..! Well done.

Your post is short of some of the details (shutter, F stop, tripod?? etc) requested, and is this a blend of images? From a composition standpoint I feel a little 'hemmed in' especially by the LHS side foreground and might consider a slight crop from the left. I want to take another step forward to see more but appreciate that the next step forward might have been a real BIG one and could not be taken. Also think I would try a little more sharpening..

DON

[James Fuller]

Thanks Don! Some more details: the image was taken with a tripod. F16, ISO 200...1/6th sec....+/- 3 stops on each side, blended with Photomatix.

[Morkel Erasmus]

James this is a stunning composition captured under great atmospheric conditions. It looks a little too "HDR" to me (by that I mean a little psychedelic). That may be what you were going for and I realise it's a taste thing.
It's not just in the tones/colours, it's also the luminosity - there's a sheen on the rocks on the bend and on the water that just doesn't fit with the fall and direction of light here.

I would encourage you to have a look at some of Tony Kuyper's actions and tutorials for manual blending of exposures. It gives more natural results and this scene is worth the work that one puts in when blending like this.
I'd be keen to have a crack for you, but that would mean you sending me the various exposures in RAW format which would take a lot of time and bandwidth.

Tell you what - send me the various exposures you used in JPG format, sized to 2400px wide, no processing done except straight export from Lightroom/ACR. I will do a quick blend of them and repost here.
You can send it via Dropbox - will PM you my account details.

[dankearl]

Stunning and contest worthy.
Simply fantastic.

[John Ippolito]

A beautifully crafted image, James. It has some surreal color and luminosity relative to the light, but this might be just how you envisioned the image. I like it a lot. Very captivating !!

[James Fuller]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I was trying to see how much blue saturation I could get away with

I'm not exactly sure what you all mean by luminosity light levels, but I went ahead and darkened the foreground rocks and toned down the blue saturation a little.

Better or worse? Thanks!

[Morkel Erasmus]

It's all taste, James, but I merely meant that the exposure and "lightness" of the rocks and water don't look consistent with the fall of sunlight from behind - for example the main horseshoe pinnacle rock would be much darker as there's no direct light on it.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Okay James...

First off, thanks for sharing your files with me.

Here's my rework. I worked very quickly and there could still be lots of optimisation potential in the pixels.
It literally took me no more than 10 minutes to blend 3 of your exposures manually (I used -3, -1 and 0) - yes I used a few actions which makes the workflow quicker and easier.

Tell me what you think? I think it packs a lot of punch without going overboard on colours and look/feel. It still looks quite natural IMHO.


I cloned out your solar flare spots. An easy way to avoid them is to shoot one more exposure (exposed for the foreground) while holding your thumb in front of the lens so that the sun is actually "blocked" and the flare spots cannot form. You then later just blend this one to the top and erase the "human hand" in the frame. A tip I picked up from Hougaard Malan. See more of his tutorials on www.hougaardmalan.com

[James Fuller]

Morkel, thanks for taking the time to rework this image for me!

At first glance, I was shocked at the difference between your version and mine, probably because I've been staring at my version for the last few days. I really like the colors in your version, they look much more realistic!

I now understand what you mean about the luminosity levels, which look a lot more natural in your version. Looks like I have some more processing to do! Thanks for the tips!

[Morkel Erasmus]

My pleasure, James.
Another thing that struck me when viewing both is the way that Photomatix evens out the exposure so much that the subtleties of the light are lost...for example I love how the light kisses the rim of the rocks in the foreground, which just isn't as pronounced in your OP due to the amount the areas around it are overcompensated in the balance of exposure.

[John Ippolito]

James, I think Morkel has beautifully demonstrated the "unnatural" luminosity of the OP. Blending and luminosity masks are a great way to go here.
It is one of the reasons I don't like using HDR for most landscapes. HDR can make its own drama in flat, harsh light, but it frequently loses Nature's more elegant play of light on the scene - and this image has plenty of it.

[Don Railton]

Good stuff Morkel..! this is a huge improvement, espc both in the sky and the immediate foreground... I still want to see past that edge on the left though.

DON

[Jerry van Dijk]

My pleasure, James.
Another thing that struck me when viewing both is the way that Photomatix evens out the exposure so much that the subtleties of the light are lost...for example I love how the light kisses the rim of the rocks in the foreground, which just isn't as pronounced in your OP due to the amount the areas around it are overcompensated in the balance of exposure.

Hi all, whether Photomatix does this or not is strongly dependent on the settings of the lighting adjustments slider. It does exactly what it says: it adjusts the lighting effects in your image (i.e. the apparent directionality of the light). Although you can use it for some great creative effects and to completely change the way your image looks, it can ruin an image like this where the angle of light is quite obiviuous. What I especially don't like is that there doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern in image response to different settings of the slider, so you really need to play around with the slider a lot to get it right. I even doubt whether you turn it "off" in the zero position.
All in all I think that Photomatix can do a good job for many images, but it takes quite some skill and usually also post processing after creating the HDR image to get a good natural look. It seems worthwile to invest some time in learing the manual exposure blends that Morkel refers to and uses with great succes!

[Jerry van Dijk]

I forgot to add: spectacular scene, James! I agree that your posts look a bit unnatural, which Morkel has solved very well, but I like the more dramatic skies compared to Morkels version, which adds more interest to the image. The sunburst makes the image for me.

[James Fuller]

Thanks for your comments Jerry! I agree that Photomatix can produce good results as well when used properly. However, I went a little overboard here

I am going to start learning to use the luminosity masks as well, it looks like they could be another great post processing tool for me!

[Morkel Erasmus]

I used to work with Photomatix but I have gone over to manual blending totally now.
In my experience it takes just as much (if not more) time to get a realistic-looking and well-balanced result from automated software (with the amount of tweaking you need to do in the software and afterwards in PS) than it takes to properly blend and optimise the exposures manually...

[James Fuller]

I used to work with Photomatix but I have gone over to manual blending totally now.
In my experience it takes just as much (if not more) time to get a realistic-looking and well-balanced result from automated software (with the amount of tweaking you need to do in the software and afterwards in PS) than it takes to properly blend and optimise the exposures manually...

I know it's going to take some practice for me, but I hope I am able to get results as good as yours!

[Morkel Erasmus]

Shout if you need help, James...
There are some great tutorials in video format available from guys like Sean Bagshaw (he made his in conjunction with Tony Kuyper).

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi James,

Looks like I am very late to this one. The comp is fantastic. Seen quite a few images of that point lately.
Morkels RP looks fantastic and lots can be done with that. Especially in the sky, that I might try to do more dramatic.



Have a great weekend

Ciao
Anette

[yogesh_puranik]

excellent image. I liked the overall impact, clarity and light. i liked the report from Morkel which looks more natural. BTW: i wanted to know how you got the sun stars? any specific PP work?

[Morkel Erasmus]

excellent image. I liked the overall impact, clarity and light. i liked the report from Morkel which looks more natural. BTW: i wanted to know how you got the sun stars? any specific PP work?

You can achieve that by using a slow aperture - f16 or f22 is typically ideal for most wide angle lenses.

[James Fuller]

Morkel thanks for the info, from what I've seen so far the tutorials from Sean look good.

Thanks for your comments Annette, you are absolutely right on it being a heavily photographed spot, but it sure is fun to shoot there. I got to spend three evenings there, and the sun popped out on the last one.

Yogesh, to get the sun star effect, shoot with a small aperture...it usually starts showing up well around f14 or f16, but seems to get bigger the smaller you go.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi James - beautiful scene and Morkel has really shown the fabulous potential of your capture. Also the thread has been an interesting discussion of HDR.

TFS,
Rachel

[yogesh_puranik]

thank you Morkel and James. BTW: those links are very informative. thanks again..

[Arthur Morris]

Spectacular scene and image design along with a great starburst. James, did you switch systems completely? Or a you a different James Fuller from the Valley???? I like all three varieties.

[James Fuller]

Spectacular scene and image design along with a great starburst. James, did you switch systems completely? Or a you a different James Fuller from the Valley???? I like all three varieties.

Haha, Artie, I am the same James you know from South Texas. Thanks for commenting on my landscapes! I still have my Canon gear and long lenses, and I am still shooting birds! I'm just trying to expand my photographic subjects a bit.

[Arthur Morris]

Great. And YAW. Heck, I spent two weeks photographing tulips! And doing street photograph. Go figure. Again, great to see you here. How much landscape stuff are you doing? Headed to Galapagos again soon :). We are getting Tower twice!!!!!

[James Fuller]

About 50/50 Landscapes/birds. I'm currently in New Mexico, so that makes it easier to get to great landscape spots, opposed to when I'm in South Texas, which is much better for birds.

Tower twice, that is awesome!!!! Those are going to be some action packed days. Definitely one of the best of the islands along with Hood. I hope y'all have a great trip!

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks James. It looks as if you are quite a talented landscape photographer....