Endless desert

[GB1]

Another from White Sands last March. I had to clean up the sky a bit because the sun created some noise there (why does digital have such as hard time dealing with bright areas like that??? Film had its quirks too, but ..), and also did an expt with a crazy sky. Did not spend big time hours on cleaning up the transition between the sky and land.. (if anyone knows a quicker way to do it besides pixel by pixel, let me know!)

C&C welcome

G

[jkriminger]

man that is a hard angle into that bright sky. My eye is being drawn into it ..you should try some exaggerated footprints haphazardly walking away out of the picture sometime.

[AgingEyes]

(why does digital have such as hard time dealing with bright areas like that??? Film had its quirks too, but ..),...

G

Well, you should seriously consider getting the Fujifilm S5 Pro, still the king of dynamic range

How about HDR?

Anyhow, I don't see much wrong with a bright sky in a desert shot. It's hot and bright in the desert, isn't it?

The first one there looks pretty good to me.

By the way, would you mind posting the un-edited original? I'm just wondering what problems the sky caused you.

[Greg McCary]

I like it GB. I would love a really wide angle shot. Nice...

[Frog]

I prefer the first one. Second looks like an atomic blast over the horizon.

[gahspidy]

Love the image. both versions work for me, but perhaps somewhere in between would be just right. Select the sky and warm it up some.
great stuff.

[GB1]

Rod - Excellent idea! I plan on hitting the Yuma sand dunes sometime in the next month or two and will try it. Btw I don't remember exactly where the sun was in this shot and can't really tell from looking: doesn't seem like after sunset, but if the sun was just above the frame the light would be coming from that direction, not from below. Ahh..

AE - Well, I already have 4 cameras, though 3 are film. You know I have yet to get a decent HDR shot. Someone here on the Forums said that using CS2 to merge them is part of the problem. I will post that unedited shot this evening.

Greg - Unfortunately my 24mm wide angle lens is now ~ a 39mm with the digital CCD effect You are right though - a super wide even panoramic shot would look great. Perhaps I can fake it by just moving back, exposing for the important parts, and then cropping out the upper and lower areas.

So this and the HDR are on my list for Yuma.

Frog - Funny you say that...... http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/TrinitySite/trinst.htm. Certainly fits right in with White Sands.

Gary - Thanks for commenting. Had to do some big time cleanup on this one with masking to get the sky right. (I adjusted the exposure and it caused noise in the sky, so had to mask it and apply a smart blur to smooth it out. The transition between sky and dune required a lot of elbow grease, unfortunately.) I saved the edit file, and can try warming up the sky a bit.

G

[MB1]

Split 3-Stop ND filter.

[GB1]

Hmmf. AE, it appears that I overwrote the original file when I made the masking and smart blur changes. That's not something I normally do. It is a scanned slide so I will try to dig out that slide and rescan it.

G

[AgingEyes]

Hmmf. AE, it appears that I overwrote the original file when I made the masking and smart blur changes. That's not something I normally do. It is a scanned slide so I will try to dig out that slide and rescan it.

G

Hey GB, if it's too much trouble, don't worry about it. I was just curious. No biggie.

Thanks !