I have been working on my penchant to center images.

Back story.

I saw this scene in Colorado one morning and stopped to wait for the sun to reach the bottom and illuminate the entire tree stand. When I got back to the room, I thought I could do better so I returned the following morning for these.

On this trip, I was very aware of centering as a result of recent critique. That did not stop me; many scenes have no other solution. But I worked at finding some.

I walked up and down this little water impoundment and closer and further away and lower and higher and tilted and level. Only a 14mm FF would get the entire reflection and mountain top and when it did, it was centered. That’s the first image.

I understood when I took it I would need to crop the bottom to un-center it, but why crop when I could use a longer focal length? So I mounted the 17 and got the second which cuts off the bottom of the reflection.

Last, I turned the 17 vertical and got the 3rd image. It gets the whole reflection and allows off center but miss’s large parts of the horizontal scene.

Feel free to offer suggestions on composition or any other aspect.

If you see a better composition, the 14mm ought to cover enough territory for any sort of crop.

It looks like the last tow images are a little off from a rotation stand point. I voted for #1, but 3 would have been a good choice as well. I like the way it looks with bands of color/composition. - Paul

If you'd shot several of the verticals panned, you could have stitched together an excellent version with nice rocks for a foreground and the water line nicely above the horizontal center.

I considered a stitch but I had to shift to get the framing on the 24TSE and I usually need the shift feature for left to right use for panos, but it was set for up and down shift. Using a 17 non level for panos is a recipe for disaster as is swiveling the lens. It does a great job however if you shift the lens.

Edit, looking back, I lied, I was probably not shifted on that shot. But I could have turned the lens horizontal and done a shift stitch which would have been easy if I could do it faster than the light was changing.



Many people were walking to the base of the trees and foregoing the reflection. Probably getting close up shots of individual leaves or something. The guy next to me had a 4x5 and was shooting Fuji chromes. I think he might have taken about 2 images.

I suspect I am too obsessed with getting everything. I probably ought to have singled out some part of the scene or ignored the reflection. My favorite Colorado fall color image is a hand held snap shot I took alongside the highway.

In general, I don't use a WA lens for panos. You get better panos with a normal lens and a fair number of portrait orientation images stitched together.

First ... I'm tossing out #2. The lines of the upper portion exit out the right side of the frame, while the lines of the reflection exit out the bottom. Perfect symmetry isn't necessary by any means, but it just feels non-unified, if that makes any sense.

#3 ... while I dig foreground verticals, the lines of the foreground stream draw a strong line across the frame rather than leading me from foreground rocks to the distant scene.

#1 ... even if it is a bit "centered" it doesn't bother me. The foreground rocks and stream provide for enough departure from mirror image, that it moves the eye from a diagonal perspective, thus the whole "centered" thing is no longer centered relative to its weighting in the scene.

The problem I typically have with "centered" images is that the image is in a static equilibrium ... kinda like my portraits a while back, then Karen suggested some rotation to change them from static to more dynamic.

The physical location of being in the center isn't itself a problem necessarily, but being static and centered leave the viewer kinda "stuck" in one place. Centered and dynamic, weighted, contrasted, scaled, etc. is different from centered and static.

My vote ... #1

Would like to see the vertical as a FF vs trimmed to your favorite ratio.

AuntiPode wrote:
In general, I don't use a WA lens for panos. You get better panos with a normal lens and a fair number of portrait orientation images stitched together.

The TSE lenses do incredible stitches because they have so little distortion when level. But not very good when at an angle.

This scene was way to big to do a pano with longer lenses. I would have needed to stand at least a few hundred feet further back and you could not even see the lake from there because of brush.

The 14mm shot fools you because it is a shot only it could do for this scene.

RustyBug wrote:
First ... I'm tossing out #2. The lines of the upper portion exit out the right side of the frame, while the lines of the reflection exit out the bottom. Perfect symmetry isn't necessary by any means, but it just feels non-unified, if that makes any sense.

#3 ... while I dig foreground verticals, the lines of the foreground stream draw a strong line across the frame rather than leading me from foreground rocks to the distant scene.

#1 ... even if it is a bit "centered" it doesn't bother me. The foreground rocks and stream provide for enough departure from mirror image, that it moves the eye from a diagonal perspective, thus the whole "centered" thing is no longer centered relative to its weighting in the scene.

The problem I typically have with "centered" images is that the image is in a static equilibrium ... kinda like my portraits a while back, then Karen suggested some rotation to change them from static to more dynamic.

The physical location of being in the center isn't itself a problem necessarily, but being static and centered leave the viewer kinda "stuck" in one place. Centered and dynamic, weighted, contrasted, scaled, etc. is different from centered and static.

My vote ... #1

This is about my conclusion. That and the fact that some scenes are very impressive in person but hard to convey as a photo.

sadja wrote:
Would like to see the vertical as a FF vs trimmed to your favorite ratio.

I sometimes crop during raw conversion so I need to see if I have one uncropped or if I need to start from scratch. I usually never can repeat an image from scratch.

Don't follow. If you have the RAW, you have the FF.

I should get my butt up to the Bishop area, but with gas prices in CA at over $4.50 in town and undoubtedly a buck more along the E Sierras, I'm feeling inhiibited.

For Sadja. As suspected, I did not save the uncropped version. But what a surprise when I dug it up for reprocessing, it was centered? Who would have guessed that?

I suppose I had my camera leveled as usual which tends to make stuff centered. But I knew that this had too much sky and after crop would be off center.

I suppose I could have used a 24 for this shot and pointed the camera up or down.

Come to think of it, the best solution would have been to use a 24TSE and shift up and down to make a much wider vertical stitch. That would have provided a broader image and not lost so much of the width.

Image #1 all the way!

sadja wrote:
Don't follow. If you have the RAW, you have the FF.

I should get my butt up to the Bishop area, but with gas prices in CA at over $4.50 in town and undoubtedly a buck more along the E Sierras, I'm feeling inhiibited.

Bishop is 540 miles from here, I used to drive up there after work Friday night and drive home Sunday when I live in Sylmar. And that was just for camping and fishing.

I would like to get back there someday, but I have pretty good fall color within 20 miles of home. Just waiting for some clouds.

I hope I answered your question. I went back to the raw but was not able to get the same rendering as presented in my first post because I did the cropping during raw conversion for that one.

AuntiPode wrote:
If you'd shot several of the verticals panned, you could have stitched together an excellent version with nice rocks for a foreground and the water line nicely above the horizontal center.


Yes, I like it with more rock as foreground.

Ben,
I voted (for #1) but hadnt commented.
These are gorgeous!
I'd be proud to have taken, processed ad displayed the first on my walls, in a show, anywhere I could.
Fantastic color. Foreground rocks on the left balance and echo the rocky peak on the right.
The whitish area (what is that?) defines, balances, divides the image. Just the right amount of sky for balance without detracting or dominating the top half.
This is my favorite comp and image of yours that I have seen.
Beautiful.
Scott

Thanks Scott, I appreciate your comment very much. The white is the far shore of this small impoundment.

Another vote for #1....nice image with great color. With reflections I don't mind a centered horizon line. Foreground interest such as you included usually makes an improvement.

Camperjim wrote:
Another vote for #1....nice image with great color. With reflections I don't mind a centered horizon line. Foreground interest such as you included usually makes an improvement.

Thanks Jim.

After thinking of this and why I did not do a stitch job which would be a waste of time with the 14 (too much distortion) but a piece of cake with the 17TSE, I remember that the the rocks and water just to the left of this were not pretty. I was at the edge of the rocks so there were no more to include by moving back. Just some rather ugly mud.

It was all about color and the reflection. What it needed was a red cloud sky to rise to the next level. The rocks were just an anchoring element. Finding a way to reduce the man made stuff including the impoundment dam itself was also a problem. In the first I allowed the shadow to darken it, but that only lasted a minute at most.