Zion National Park - Watchman

We just returned from a camping trip at Zion. What a great place for a trip - hiking and photographing. I thought I would post a few.

1. This is from a fairly common location of Watchman.





2. Another one of Watchman






3. Me and my boys hiking up the narrows...





4. A little fall color.




Thanks for looking - constructive comments always appreciated.

Hey David,

You are getting me really excited for my trip. I hope there is still foliage left next week. The first shot is my favorite...great colors, and great composition.

James

James - you will be hitting the colors at about the perfect time. Typically they say the last week of Oct / first week of Nov is peak for Zion, but I think the leaves are changing a little early this year - perfect for your trip.

The 1 mile hike from the Temple of Sinaweva to the start of the narrows is paved the entire way and relatively flat. You should try that hike with your family. I saw one person actually in a wheelchair on that hike.

Enjoy.
Dave

David, your compositions seem stronger in this set, but the post processing for the top two seem a bit off. Colors are not (on my screen) where I would expect them to be. You also have some dark areas on the left of the first one that might be worth exploring balancing out the lightness. The top two are VERY much worth revisiting the Post Processing on them. (They also seem to be leaning to the right for both of them.)

Wouldnt mind playing with them if you have RAW files you would trust with me.

Roman

Roman,

It would be great if you want to play with those two. I appreciate your offer. Please really spell out what you do to them in PP because I need to learn.

I will email you RAW files - I cannot remember what service we used in the past but I will figure it out and send them to the email address on your pbase site.

The first one is a blend from two different shots taken a couple of minutes apart - because the pink sky was really fleeting - and the rest of that file was too under exposed. I will send you the file exposed for the mountain / river, but the pink sky was less when it was taken.

Thanks again for the offer. I am excited to see what you come up with...
Dave

Hey Guys,

I look forward to seeing them when you are finished with the photos. I am in a place with Internet today...which is nice. I am still at Bryce Canyon. Bryce is out of this world beautiful - honestly, I have never seen anything like it. I am having a dickens of a time though getting shots in focus due to the cold...mostly a result of hand-holding the ND grad and trying to eliminate any appearance of a line.

This morning, I was at the aptly named Sunrise Point. It was amazing. LOL, tonight I was at Sunset Point. The weather had gotten overcast and it looked like snow. However, the sun did break through and I was able to grab about 60 seconds of sunset. I THINK that I may have gotten a couple. Again, the problem being slow shutter speeds and motion blur - this is with a tripod and a really good head. It has been FREEZING. The winds were wicked - and we are up about 8500 feet. The temp was in the mid to high 20s this morning and the wind chill made my hands absolutely numb (even with just the short time I had them out of my gloves).

If I got 3 good shots today, I will be happy.

James

Great to hear from you James - I forgot that Bryce is about 8000 feet elevation, so cold!! Hope to see your shots soon - even if only a few.

Roman - files were sent to your verizon email - let me know if you do not receive.

Dave

Got the files.....and will start working on them....but I have to give you one warning....part of my workflow is kinda a secret. The basics that I PP the RAW file I will be happy to give you. Will even send you the side car files which will show you everything I did. Just throw it in the folder along with the .nef file and it should show you the changes automaticly when you open it in ACR.

Will post the end product first....then we can talk a bit.

Here is the first one, will work on the one with the blend next (which I will use the techniques spelled out on my tutorial on this site for blends for Dynamic Range)



Roman

And here is the 2nd one.
NOTE: This is all from the darker file they were not taken from the same angle (IE bright and dark one taken from the same spot on a tripod) so was forced to choose one and chose the one with the sky detail in the shot. So the darker forground area is full of noise which would be hard to recover from but should make an ok smaller print (like 12 x 18" etc)

If you had taken this shot with a tripod and exposed 100% corretcly for foreground and one after for sky, this could have turned into quite a gallery quality print. Now...dont start kicking yourself...lol...its all part of the learning experience. On the good side, your compositions are REALLY starting to improve....these two shots are very nice.

I have full sized files I will try to send back to you.



Roman

Roman - Thanks!

This really does make a difference on both shots. I very much appreciate your willingness to do this.

There is much more color separation, so a much broader range of colors throughout. The shots also have more vibrancy.
I would like to hear as much of your process as you are comfortable sharing. I really want to learn how to bring out the best in my shots. I work at it almost every night, but still obviously have a ways to go.

Please do send me the files and I will see if I can figure out how to view the side car files. My email address is ddilli @q dot com. (of course without the spaces)

Thanks again for your help.
Dave

Hey Roman/David,

Great conversation thus far. I am heading to Zion tonight. Does anyone know of a decent sunset location when I get out there? It is about two hours away from here....we will probably leave late morning/early afternoon. Oh heck...while I am at it, how about a sunrise for the morning? We will be staying near the lodge.

James

James,

The first two shots in this thread were taken at sunrise near canyon junction. That location is easy to get to, and good for either sunset or sunrise.

I also like Canyon overlook - which is on the east side of the tunnel, and about a half mile hike from the road.

Hi James:

I don't see my previous reply, so I must have pushed the wrong button.

In any event, What I said was that I don't think you can go wrong following Dave's advice. The Watchman is good for both sunrise and sunset, but is probably more popular at sunset. The easiest and most popular access is from the bridge near the Canyon Junction Shuttle Stop. (Which is where I suspect Dave took the shot posted here from.)

Another good sunrise location, especially if you are staying in Springdale, is the "Towers of the Virgin," Easiest access is from behind the Zion Museum. I have never tried it, but you can also view it from the end of the Canyon Overlook Trail.

I would like to ask a few questions - I hope it is ok to do so in this thread James.

Before I ask PP questions, I have a field question that relates to high dynamic range scenes, like the one here.
Roman mentioned above that for best results, expose accurately for the sky, then expose accurately for the foreground and blend the two exposures. In order to avoid camera movement, my process is to use the camera's auto bracketing capability to take three shots, one over exposed, one accurate and one under exposed. I usually set to F8 or F11 and use aperature priority, and confirm I get both ends of the histogram within range between the three shots. This does not, however, accurately expose for either - just gets it all in the histogram.

How do you prevent movement when you are exposing once for sky and once for foreground? In the past I have used the camera's spot meter to get both exposures, then manually changed the exposure between the two shots. Each time I did this I got camera movement from changing the setting. Maybe it is just that my tripod is too light, or is there a trick to do this?

I seem to fumble around trying to get a gradated ND filter to work right, so woujld prefer to do so in PP.

Is there something I am missing?

Hey David,

LOL, not sure why I would mind! Seems like great questions to be asking.

"I seem to fumble around trying to get a gradated ND filter to work right, so would prefer to do so in PP."

I am not the person to answer this question. I try as much as possible to do things in camera. While I am still developing my technique with my ND filters (Singh Ray), I feel that I have become at least competent with them. I use them both hand held and with my 4x6 filter holder.

James

PS Thanks to all for the answers. I was at the Watchman tonight near the visitor center. Tomorrow AM we will be at the museum for sunrise. I hope to do the Watchman again tomorrow. This time I would like to find the location that David shared. Great composition!!

James - sounds like you are having a ball. Keep us posted.

Roman - I was really amazed with the way the ACR files looked - you made significant changes in ACR that I have never considered. Is there anything about how you do that that you are comfortable sharing? If not I understand.

You made significant changes to the Tint, Hue and Luminence for different colors, in addition to the typical changes available on the basic tab.

What makes you decide to do something in ACR rather than PS? Is there a particular order you go through in ACR? Probably the most challenging thing I saw was the changes you made to tint and WB. I would have never ended up with those changes - particularly tint. Maybe I just need to start playing more in ACR?

Do you do the WB and Tint first? What are you looking for at that point??? I think I am confused about how WB/ Tint and the hue/luminence sliders all work together.

I did go back to one of my exposures, make similar changes in ACR to what you did, blend with a differnt sky, then run it through what I usually do in PS, and got the result below. This one started out with a better exposure of the FG than the one I sent you.

I like it much better than my original posting - but I just do not see how I could have come to this on my own without seeing your ACR file of a similar shot.



I would appreciate if there is anything you are comfortable sharing about this process.

Thanks again for your help.
Dave

Quote:

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If you had taken this shot with a tripod and exposed 100% corretcly for foreground and one after for sky, this could have turned into quite a gallery quality print.
Roman

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Is this the common practice now, to get everything you want in separate images and blend them in Photo shop? I know its impossible at times, but as I'm trying to get better I've been going about getting the most out of a single frame as I can manage. Perhaps I'm going about things the wrong way.