roguecoolman wrote:
Mark,

Thanks for taking great effort and sharing your wonderful photos. I like both versions and I understand not everyone like the magenta cast. But I think your first one is a real attention grabber. For me, if that was printed large and put in a gallery that would grab my attention and I'd walk over to take a gander. That's just me and everyone has their own color preferences. If you like the first one, then that's great!

Jason

Thanks Jason. At least on my monitor, with my calibration I like the magenta one better...

scottinash wrote:
Hi Mark, I like both versions! I was immediately drawn to your post because I think I captured an arial view of this bend last September and haven't been able to identify it until now. PM me if your interested in seeing from a higher altitude....I think I even see the trail system that you may have used to get out to the point.
Scott

Wow, how cool! I think I saw you fly over! Actually next time I want to climb down about 1/2 way to the bottom to accentuate the mountain all the more!

There's a line between realistic images and visual impact. This image is in no way realistic, however it does have visual impact. Unfortunately for me, even the toned down image, though much improved, is somewhat jarring. For me the colour is simply too much and I am not sure I like the combination of rich reds and lurid pink/purple.

Given that you do favor highly saturated images I can understand this, but in the case of this image I think a better result could be achieved were you to tone it down even further. Sometimes less is more.

Sorry to be so critical!

Alex

Alex Nail wrote:
There's a line between realistic images and visual impact. This image is in no way realistic, however it does have visual impact. Unfortunately for me, even the toned down image, though much improved, is somewhat jarring. For me the colour is simply too much and I am not sure I like the combination of rich reds and lurid pink/purple.

Given that you do favor highly saturated images I can understand this, but in the case of this image I think a better result could be achieved were you to tone it down even further. Sometimes less is more.

Sorry to be so critical!

Alex

It is totally fine to disagree. No sorry necessary. I disagree with your statement "This image is in no way realistic." On my system I think it is generally close. Or in other words, it reminds me of, or relays the moment the sunset hit its climax, well.

My 'Hidous' comment was 'tongue in cheek' which I used as I said in my original comment that I didn't feel that this was in anyway up to Mark's normal standard. And even Mark agreed that it wasn't his normal standard in his reply to my comment.

I'm sure Mark never took this in any way as a personal attack on him or his work which I in the most part highly admire.
If he did I'm sure he would let me know one way or another. If I did offend him in anyway than I apologize for my comment on his image.

This forum really needs to get away from the 'pat on the back' attitude and be more constructive like it used to be a few years back.

And Fred: If you don't like my somewhat blunt comments then please feel free to ban me. Have you had any complaints about me in the past? Or is this just your view?

Nigel.

Mark Metternich wrote:
It is totally fine to disagree. No sorry necessary. I disagree with your statement "This image is in no way realistic." On my system I think it is generally close. Or in other words, it reminds me of, or relays the moment the sunset hit its climax, well.

The combination of red rocks and reddish sunset/sunrise sky has a tendency of creating strong magenta cast. So, I agree with Mark that it's real. However, one can also choose to ignore reality and create imaginary work of art

Nigel Turner wrote:
My 'Hidous' comment was 'tongue in cheek' which I used as I said in my original comment that I didn't feel that this was in anyway up to Mark's normal standard. And even Mark agreed that it wasn't his normal standard in his reply to my comment.

I'm sure Mark never took this in any way as a personal attack on him or his work which I in the most part highly admire.
If he did I'm sure he would let me know one way or another. If I did offend him in anyway than I apologize for my comment on his image.

This forum really needs to get away from the 'pat on the back' attitude and be more constructive like it used to be a few years back.

And Fred: If you don't like my somewhat blunt comments then please feel free to ban me. Have you had any complaints about me in the past? Or is this just your view?

Nigel.




I'm cool man. I was not offended because I like the shot. I was surprised at the comment, but that is the problem with type. Often we think we know who each other are and what we mean, but most often the truth does not come across by mere writing. I did not know that it was tongue in cheek, but I thought that could be a possibility, since hideous seemed extreme. Again, all is well. I dont take this so seriously as I may have years back. Life is short, let's live and love.

.

.

what bothers me here, unnatural strong colors notwithstanding, is the large amount of flattening of what are essentially vertical walls on the side of the frame as a result of tilting downward with a 14mm wide angle. the flattening of the vertical walls is so pronounced it loses me everytime.

a huge part of the eerie majesty of glen canyon is the juxtaposition of towering and vertical walls falling straight into the Colorado below. Compared to shots of the similar Horseshoe Bend done by masters like Gary Ladd or Tad Nichols who used view camera movements to keep a correct vertical perspective, this one, Mark, seems unnaturally distorted.

compounding the problem of the flattened walls on frame right and left, is the absolutely straight vertical of the bend wall in the middle on the other side of the Colorado.

the 17mm t/s would be an inspired lens choice, shifted downward. or you could sacrifice some of the wide angle and use PS perspective control edit tools to pull the walls toward vertical. it simply loses its power to me with such a flattened perspective.

.

The composition is great and I love the water in it for some reason. The picture is great except there is a bit too much red tint in it for my liking.

I am very impressed with this photo. I would say this from a consumer point of view as opposed to a professional opinion as to quality of comp etc. All of your posted pics have been impressive. As an add on comment, I purchased your Blend if video, and I cannot believe that this has not become more main stream in post processing. It is sooooo much easier and better quality than masking. It only takes seconds to accomplish a task that previously took much much longer. I have only started to get into the blend if, but there seems to be multiple applications.
Thank you Randy

Aaron Macomber wrote:
The walls in this section are not straight vertical as they are further upriver like at horseshoe and closer to the dam. I don't find this to look inaccurate at all and I have run this section of the Colorado up and down at least 25 times.


That is somewhat true. You can scramble climb down from here, especially on the right (although watch out for snakes and rock slides!). I actually like the distortion on the 14mm L2 and it has never bothered me. Call me crazy, but I have used all the TS lenses (including the 17mm) and just dont like them much. Reality schmeality.

.

Hi Mark,

I also like the less saturated version better, but I'm looking at it on on ipad so there's a grain of salt in there. In any event, the 14mm gives the shot enormous depth. It also has an unusual point of view, from below ground level, and is perfectly symmetrical, even in the sky. So to me it breaks a few "rules". And for my money it does so very effectively.

Phil

rjtmmt wrote:
I purchased your "Blending for Dynamic Range Made Easy - Blend If" video, and I cannot believe that this has not become more main stream in post processing. It is sooooo much easier and better quality than masking. It only takes seconds to accomplish a task that previously took much much longer. I have only started to get into the blend if, but there seems to be multiple applications.
Thank you Randy

Thank you Randy! That is exactly what I have been saying! In the last month since its release, I now have so many personal email testimonials that I cannot put half of them on my website or it would look ridiculous. This is very satisfying to me that people are benefitting so much! I remember struggling very, very hard to figure how to blend well, so to be able to radically shortcut that learning process for people is really cool. Thank you very much for making mention!

After seeing all these comments I couldn't help, but look for myself, so I downloaded the pick and looked at the difference of the levels before and after doing color cast removal......on the original post. I used the dark shadow in the middle of the river, which I felt was best.
I simply couldn't notice any difference, if I clicked around a bit it would occasionaly hit a more magenta pixel and would in turn remove a significant amount of magenta making the pic purple.

This tells me that the image is not overly cast with magenta compared to what the actual scene was like. I will admit that you could have desat that area of the image, but overall I think you just happen to be at the right place at the right time and caught some awesome color.....which seems to make some people jealous.

A+ for effort, A+ for taking the rough comments, A for a great image. I do see and agree that there could be an extra bit of foreground, but that is shooting the location and it isn't 100% what you always want, plus considering the ratio of sky...I think it was perfectly balanced for your lens and your scene.

Thanks for sharing Mark!

I really like the image overall. I also have to say, if it was a poor/boring image, nobody would be talking about it I agree on the saturation, that it could be toned down, but the shot is of something very unique and it's hard to not appreciate it. I also am a big fan of shots with some kind of story behind it, like your climb down to the vantage point. I appreciate that I will never shoot this bend from the point you did.

If I had a beef with it, it's the tonality in the rock. The shadows seem to have been pushed enough to look grey. I think some hard contrast in the rock could have been celebrated rather than pushed out.

I think the point of all this discussion is that the shot is amazing and the only thing needing something is the editing.

denovo2k1 wrote:
After seeing all these comments I couldn't help, but look for myself, so I downloaded the pick and looked at the difference of the levels before and after doing color cast removal......on the original post. I used the dark shadow in the middle of the river, which I felt was best.
I simply couldn't notice any difference, if I clicked around a bit it would occasionaly hit a more magenta pixel and would in turn remove a significant amount of magenta making the pic purple.

This tells me that the image is not overly cast with magenta compared to what the actual scene was like. I will admit that you could have desat that area of the image, but overall I think you just happen to be at the right place at the right time and caught some awesome color.....which seems to make some people jealous.

A+ for effort, A+ for taking the rough comments, A for a great image. I do see and agree that there could be an extra bit of foreground, but that is shooting the location and it isn't 100% what you always want, plus considering the ratio of sky...I think it was perfectly balanced for your lens and your scene.

Thanks for sharing Mark!

Thank you!