This is a picture I took in a park called Garden of the Gods. This ended up being the only picture of the formation and the mountain that turned out right. Im going to retry the shot again this weekend and get the rock formation larger and less of the sky and ground.

Hope everyone enjoys it.

Army

I think you have a wise plan.

AW - Good scenery. I personally am not sure that you really have the rocks too small in the frame here, as the supporting cast of characters - bushes, grass, mountains - are all interesting. The one thing that bugs me though are those branches in the way in the foreground - arrg. Also, try using a tripod even if you don't think you need it. The pix will come out sharper in the end. The sky is awfully blue here - pow. I wonder if you have the in-camera color space set to some enhanced setting?

Gb

Perhaps get in front of that dead bush?
I agree with GB on the sky. Did you use a polarizer?

I wanted to get infront of the bush except for the 50ft cliff that was already infront of it. And no I didnt tweek the colors of the sky, they really are that blue out here,,,at 8 in the morning. Ive learned not to leave the house without the camera epuiment in the trunk of my car and that now includes my tripod and sun shades for the lenses. Whats a polarizer?
Army

I wanted to get infront of the bush except for the 50ft cliff that was already infront of it........

Sacrifices have to be made......

Really, I think you have a fine ratio of rock, foreground and mountains but I agree there is a bit too much sky as there isn't much interesting going on in the sky. If there were some great cloud formations that would be something else entirely-but then so would the resulting image.

AW - it's hard to describe what a polarizer is exactly, but it's a filter that many landscape photographer's use to 1) make the colors more saturated esp blue skies and 2) reduce or remove reflections in windows, water, and other stuff. You rotate them to increase or decrease the polarization effect. They increases the richness of your image and perhaps the contrast too (sometimes), but also make the images look different - usually for the better, but not always - they can make some shots look unreal, esp shots of people. Also note that they block a significant amount of light - you will lose between ~ 0.5 to 2 f-stops of light. Almost all landscape photographers carry one with them.. They're the # 1 most popular filter.

G

If you have some polarized sun glasses look at a cloudy sky with them on and with them off and you'll see the effect.

a polarizer technically only allows light moving in a set direction past it. which cuts down on glare ( looking in to water, off glass, etc) and also is why you lose f stops. however the added effect of deep blue sky and a few other benefts offten outweight the negatives.

Since I do so many landscape shots here in Colorado I am definatly goint to have to check up on getting a polarizer and defintly have to play with it. As always thanks for answering all the questions I have. Im sure ill have more questions everytime i post somthing.
Army

Also prob crop out the rock on the left. its a little distracting to me

Heres the same picture croped.

That crop does a good job of making the rock formation in the middle the focal point of the image. The tree in the center foreground is still a bit on a issue but short of going out there with a chainsaw I don't know what you could do about it.

Yea the chainsaw idea makes me giggle a lil but technical very illegal since its a national park. but maybe this weekend if the weather is good ill try this shot again from a differnt angle or if nothing else stand on top of my car.
Army