Hi all! This is one of my first posts on NWP, and my very first attempt at a pano! I tried posting in another forum but didn't get the photo attached. Hope I figure it out this time!
This is a 4 shot pano of part of the Big Belts mountains near Townsend, MT a couple of weeks ago. The sun was going down behind me as the moon was coming up. CS2 was used to stitch and for PP. This is also a composit, as I took a fifth shot zoomed in on the moon, and replaced the smaller moon in the pano with it, moving it to line up with the road and Baldy Mtn. in the background.
I hope to learn from the talented photographers here, so all C&C is appreciated! Compositionally or technically, what could I have done to improve this shot? Thanks for looking and for any help!
D80/18-135mm Nikor
38mm, F20, 1/15 sec., ISO 200, +1 EV, tripod
\Kelly

Hi Kelly,

Welcome aboard. I have come back to your photograph a couple of times since I first opened it last night. First of all, the composition, I think is very good. What I consider a relatively mundane roll of mountains is really brought alive by the moon. You also did a great job with placement of the road, which looks like you are going to drive right into that moon if you move far enough. Every time I look at the moon, I think it is going to land into the mountains. It is so large, it almost looks fake.

The exposure is very well done as well. It is very hard to get great detail in the moon unless you are photographing at exactly the right moment. Obviously, you did that. As to what to do differently? Honestly, I think you did a great job. If you are interested in some variation, it might be interesting to see some tighter versions of this - particularly of the moon coming up the mountain range.

Cheers and welcome,
James

James,
Thanks for the feedback! As I mentioned, this is a composite image, as I selected the moon from another shot where I had zoomed in with my 70-300mm VR to get a tight shot. I selected the moon from that image and placed it in this pano, moving it to line up with the road, and enlarging it. I was afraid that I had made it too big! Attached is an image of the moon as it came up over the mountains, in its proper position.
As an aside, how do I get the picture to paste into my message, instead of having it as an attachment? I do not have my own web page to link to, or paste the URL in. Thank you again!

Kelly

LOL, it goes to show you how much my little brain can possibly process at a given time before completely blanking out. Anyway, I might be interested in seeing what the original moon looks like in the original pano composite. I apologize that I overlooked the 2nd half of the message.

The one critique that I will have then is that the moon looks to big in the photo (as I was saying initially). Your placement though of the moon was well done with the road.

James

Man that's a wide one, George! I had to slide the left side off my 24" screen!

You got it! Here is the pano before I played with the moon. It's not bad, I guess, but just doesn't seem to have the impact that I felt as I was standing out there in sub-zero weather admiring the site and taking this picture. It was awesome! Well, except for the sub-zero stuff.

Kelly

glamson,

Thanks for taking the time to view it, and then working with it! I like the B&W fine, but I think I prefer the color version a little more. I am going to try a B&W version myself, and will probably find that I like the full-sized file B&W just a smuch as the color. I had never heard of applying a red filter to a B&W! I will have to try that as well. How does the red filter affect it? Bring out more detail? Just changes the overall tone? I guess I shall soon see. Again, thank you for looking!

Kelly

Kelly,
I like the blue shadow on the snow in the color version better but agree the moon is over done. Try about double the size of the real moon. I like the moon placement over the road.
The best part of this photo is the contrasting shadow(and blue snow) vs the lit mountains.Don't over power this with a huge moon. You want people to say wow, not hey that moon looks funny.
Joe

Joe,

Quote:

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You want people to say wow, not hey that moon looks funny.

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Now that sounds like the kind of sage photographic wisdom that I should learn to live by! (Actually made me laugh. Thank you for that!) I am going to re-do the moon and post it tomorrow. I will try doubling the size of the original moon, as you suggest. Thank you for looking and comenting!

Kelly