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Archive 2016 · Wide open spaces

  
 
ben egbert
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Wide open spaces


This was just an experiment in focus stacking taken a week or so back from the west side of Utah Lake looking back toward the Wasatch range east of Provo Utah.

I am posting it with some misgivings. Its probably not a very interesting image, but there is something about it I really like. It looks a whole lot better on a 26 inch screen too, so what I see does not come across on web size.

The focus stacking worked well here, better than some other shots I took at longer focal lengths.

The wide open spaces here and the ability to roam at will in any direction appeal to my sense of freedom. As I kid, I came to hate fences and would climb the fence at my high school and make my escape. Forests are also confining as are farm fields and ranches, but open range like this is not.

I guess I am showing this more as an expression of personal foibles than anything else. Like to hear your opinion. I post here for that purpose when I am unsure what I have. So let me have it.

I also tried a 16x9 crop, but I like the sky and foreground too much to lose either. I have versions of this at other focal lengths too.









Feb 06, 2016 at 11:01 AM
beavens
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Wide open spaces


Ben,

Just personal opinion here, but it feels like the transition from foreground to background is too abrupt here.

It's almost like I would want to swing the camera around left and increase elevation so I'm shooting more down into the valley.

My $0.02. I really like the range. A shame the entire scene isn't that amazing palette of blues.

Cheers,

Jeff



Feb 06, 2016 at 12:10 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Wide open spaces


beavens wrote:
Ben,

Just personal opinion here, but it feels like the transition from foreground to background is too abrupt here.

It's almost like I would want to swing the camera around left and increase elevation so I'm shooting more down into the valley.

My $0.02. I really like the range. A shame the entire scene isn't that amazing palette of blues.

Cheers,

Jeff


Yes, I ideally I could get higher, but the high ground behind where I stood is impassable this time of year and alas, much of it is now fenced. This indeed is a valley, Utah Valley to be exact. The lowest part is Utah Lake which is about 7-8 miles wide and about 30 miles long, some is visible on the right. We are looking across it now. It is frozen. Some years there is a great reflection in the ice, but this year the ice is not reflecting. Maybe too much snow, or maybe it needs to get wet and refreeze.




Feb 06, 2016 at 12:24 PM
oldrattler
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Wide open spaces


Ben; I find the sky & mountain range to be interesting but not enough to carry the image. The fore ground is boring, Too much showing. A crop with more mountain would be preferable to me. Jim


Feb 06, 2016 at 02:18 PM
Camperjim
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Wide open spaces


Ben, I am not sure what you see in the foreground. In fact the foreground seems like something you would dislike. As a flatlander, I find the appeal to be the mountains. I would crop off the bottom third and the remainder is really attractive at least to me.


Feb 06, 2016 at 03:45 PM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Wide open spaces


Camperjim wrote:
Ben, I am not sure what you see in the foreground. In fact the foreground seems like something you would dislike. As a flatlander, I find the appeal to be the mountains. I would crop off the bottom third and the remainder is really attractive at least to me.


+1




Feb 06, 2016 at 03:48 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Wide open spaces


The foreground appeals to this old desert rat. I like sage and I like twiggy branchy fine detail stuff up close.

In fact I chose this in part to test the process, and never expected to show it as attractive, but it did appeal to me.

Looking at this some more, I could have walked forward until I reached a high spot for a better view. But the haze we get over the lake would kill it anyway.

I need to be on the other side of those mountains to avoid the haze.

Here are some other focal lengths. These all have some OOF areas. I was not able to see the LCD so I was trusting live view focus. But for a shot likes these. I need get focus right into the corners.

Note, I hardly ever use a 100mm for landscapes because of DOF and the 100MM in this has a DOF issue too but not so bad as a none focus stacked image.

















Feb 06, 2016 at 04:19 PM
AMaji
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Wide open spaces


The original image was technically well done... good job with the focus stacking. As a lot of us have a varied opinion with the foreground, maybe you can try some poetic variations with the foreground, like warming it up.


Feb 06, 2016 at 05:05 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Wide open spaces


AMaji wrote:
The original image was technically well done... good job with the focus stacking. As a lot of us have a varied opinion with the foreground, maybe you can try some poetic variations with the foreground, like warming it up.


Thanks, and I this was a stretch. I let it sit around for a week thinking it was an oddity, and now I wish I had spent more time looking for compositions.

Here is one from a couple years ago. I can't get to this place any longer and the ice and snow are not as nice anyway.







Feb 06, 2016 at 05:56 PM
AMaji
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Wide open spaces


Ben,
This one is great.

Maji



Feb 06, 2016 at 09:00 PM
beavens
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Wide open spaces


Ben,

Have you tried minimizing haze with Dehaze in LR?

I'm a lowly peasant with LR6 standalone so I couldn't tell ya the effectiveness, but perhaps it might help.



Feb 06, 2016 at 10:27 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Wide open spaces


beavens wrote:
Ben,

Have you tried minimizing haze with Dehaze in LR?

I'm a lowly peasant with LR6 standalone so I couldn't tell ya the effectiveness, but perhaps it might help.


Haze can be dealt with, the one above with the ice reflection was. I used some dehaze on the others but I like to stop at 10. I don't use LR, but its available to me in ACR when I use Photoshop.






Feb 06, 2016 at 11:09 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Wide open spaces


This is a "for what it's worth" follow up to this post.

This morning I drove to the other side of the mountain range, the east side. About 30 miles from my home which is on the west side. I arrived before first light and it was 17 degrees at home, probably colder at this spot. There are only a few places with a clear view of the mountain in winter and this is one of them. The lake is Deer Creek Reservoir which impounds water from the Provo River.

Early on I see some predawn light on the peak and got the first image, sort of a blue hour shot.

As dawn approached, a fog rose up from the ice and as you see in the 2nd and 3rd images more or less ruined the shot.

It gets harder and harder to arise at dawn for this sort of result.

I worked on haze and clarity on the first, not so much on the second and not at all on the last. I went from 50 on the first to 70 2nd and changed to my 100-400 to get 100 for the last.

















Feb 08, 2016 at 12:21 PM
beavens
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Wide open spaces


Ben,

This new shot holds my attention about a million times more than the desert foreground did.

The leading lines with the tracks and consistent colors are great. Not sure about the half n half crop with the horizon - that is one aspect of landscape comp that people sometimes hate and then other times love. Is it too static? Better for symmetry or reflections? Would love some insight from a landscape shooter!

Might want to clone the black lines lower right and the foreground *might* have some color blending issues.

Cheers,

Jeff




Feb 08, 2016 at 01:18 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Wide open spaces


beavens wrote:
Ben,

This new shot holds my attention about a million times more than the desert foreground did.

The leading lines with the tracks and consistent colors are great. Not sure about the half n half crop with the horizon - that is one aspect of landscape comp that people sometimes hate and then other times love. Is it too static? Better for symmetry or reflections? Would love some insight from a landscape shooter!

Might want to clone the black lines lower right and the foreground *might* have some color blending issues.

Cheers,

Jeff



Thanks for your comments Jeff. For the first one, the stars were still visible but got lost in processing. It was dark and required ISO400 and long exposure. The histogram was really thin. I had to stretch it out to get anything. It was also very blue and when I corrected the snow it was still blue on the foreground as it should be at blue hour. I already cropped a lot off the bottom. maybe I should have cropped more for offsetting the horizon. I generally plan on doing this with a crop rather than point the lens upward.

I might play with it some more, but to me it is not a keeper.

Here is a new go with a tighter and off center crop. Different processing on color as well.









Feb 08, 2016 at 01:33 PM





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