Mountain clouds at sunrise

[Stagecoach]

Following on with my adventures into the hills the latest series is from the earliest start yet, 3am, with the intention of catching some cloud but not being totally immersed in it. Luck was on my side, a clear night and no wind at all.

The below are ones of which I have completed so far, other than the cow already posted, and these three were all PPd from single shots.

For just about all frames I bracketed in case I needed to merge exposures where necessary but my results of merging so far I'm not happy with so more experimentation is needed.

No 1 - 6s, f/11, ISO 200, 20mm


No 2 - 1/3s, f/11, ISO 200, 60mm


No 3 - 1/3s, f/11, ISO 200, 60mm



Comments and suggestions welcome as always.

Grahame

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[Manfred M]

Who says insomnia has no upsides? These are very nice; I love the shots where you can see pockets of clouds and / or fog nestled in pockets of the image. I made a brief, but unsuccessful, attempt at something like this last week. If I wake up early, I'll have to take another go at it.

I personally prefer the first one; it just seems to be stronger and less washed out than the other two images, but find the foliage in the foreground a bit too dark. The second one has more interesting foreground foliage, but the background just seems a bit washed out.

[mknittle]

me likes. nice work Grahame.

[Geoff F]

The second image looks good to me. Sharp foreground with sufficient detail. Possibly you could selectively tweak the clouds a little but I'm not really complaining about the shot as it is now.

I have never been happy with any of the auto merge landscapes which I have tried. What I do is to 'hand merge' shots using layers and masks. And if I only have one shot I make two different conversions from Raw Files and merge them.

[TobyMac]

Nice series, Nr.2 I like the most though.

[Wavelength]

Very nice....

[Slipper]

The second shot is the pick for me but an excellent set. I love the location too and so worth getting up early for that.
Wouldn't be where I live

[Stagecoach]

Very nice.

Thank you John

[bnnrcn]

Very nice shots, my best is #2

[PaulRJennings]

I like #1 the best but all are good.

[Stagecoach]

Thanks Manfred, I agree the first is stronger and suspect this is due to the increased range of lighting but I'm still trying to makes decisions on this.

The foreground foliage is a problem in that it's naturally dark and I'm finding that pushing it starts to produce a scene that is too far from reality, not that I'm adverse to enhancing an image. I'm wondering if the problem could be helped if large areas of foreground simply were not included, although this was not possible at this location?

Good luck if you get a second chance at your attempt.

[Stagecoach]

me likes. nice work Grahame.

Thank you Mark

[Stagecoach]

The second image looks good to me. Sharp foreground with sufficient detail. Possibly you could selectively tweak the clouds a little but I'm not really complaining about the shot as it is now.

I have never been happy with any of the auto merge landscapes which I have tried. What I do is to 'hand merge' shots using layers and masks. And if I only have one shot I make two different conversions from Raw Files and merge them.

I have not undertaken any extra work on the clouds Geoff but will have a go with No 2 as there's some potential without pushing things too far.

The ones I'm working on with merging exposures are similar to the above three but I'm coming to the conclusion it's a waste of time as all it wants to do is produce an image with more balanced lighting that simply was not the scene.

I'll have a go at hand merging but with the uneven foregrounds suspect this is going to be quite a challenge. Fortunately I have 5 exposures of each scene to use as necessary.

[Stagecoach]

Nice series, Nr.2 I like the most though.

Thanks Tobias

[Stagecoach]

Very nice....

Thanks Nandakumar

[Stagecoach]

The second shot is the pick for me but an excellent set. I love the location too and so worth getting up early for that.
Wouldn't be where I live

But John in Hampshire you have some great scenery, the New Forest area and north of Winchester !! But I have to admit when living in Southampton I never had the urge to get up early and try.

Here it is also a pleasure driving to a location, one of the biggest bonuses

[Stagecoach]

Very nice shots, my best is #2

Pleased you like No 2 Binnur, but I'm wishing now I had zoomed in a bit more on this one.

For info with regard to your recent interest on shooting apertures I made a concious decision with all of these to use f/11 rather than stopping down for more DoF safety as I wanted to reduce speed to get a better chance of capturing 5 frames where the foliage was not affected by breeze.

Grahame

[Nicks Pics]

Beautiful mountain photos. I think I like #2 best.

[Geoff F]

Grahame, just a quick suggested edit for #2. One Curves Layer selectively applied to darken the sky. Another to lighten the foreground. Plus a little bit of extra vibrance and saturation.

Working with the originals and taking a little more time, you can do better than this.