Sunrise at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley - Panorama

coscorrosa

I have a lot more to say about my single-day first-time excursion in Death Valley yesterday, but I'll save that for later (after I've gone through the photos, the short version is this: Death Valley is @#$#!@%!#@$@!!@$ awesome. And one day is nowhere near long enough to do it any kind of justice).

Meanwhile, here's the first photo I processed, which should give you an idea of the sunrise I was treated to (click photo for larger version)



11 horizontal exposures, all at f/16 at 45mm about .3-.4 seconds each.

Update: Here's one with a little more saturation and contrast:

CWSkopec

Looks awesome, Ron!!!
Can't wait to see the others!

clemensphoto's

Very nicely done

dustin32

Gorgeous colors! Love it!

coscorrosa

Thanks for the comments. I still can't get over how awesome Death Valley is. The only problem is it's going to take me forever to go through all the photos. It's a good problem to have

Hikin' Mike

Never been to Death Valley. I saw it from Mt Whitney, but never from the ground! I really need to go. Nice pano!

annnna8888

Oh my, I'm drooling. Wonderful light indeed. I can imagine your frustration about only having one day there. I often feel the same especially when I'm traveling and it's practically impossible to spend several day at every scenic place. On my last trip to Indonesia I did spend two days at a volcano though just to bo able to shoot one sunrise, one sunset and another sunrise. Crazy photographers!

Ana

Richard

Beautiful work.

hawkeye978

Beautiful picture. Look forward to seeing the rest.

Darren Troy C

Very cool!

cj99si

Awesome cant wait for the rest! Perfect stitch, great exposure. Hows Vegas? Anymore day trips planned?

bryanj87

That is so cool, especially the large version. I think we all can't wait to see more from your trip.

kdog

Awesome pano, Ron!


Glad to hear you had a great visit at DV. I would have liked to have hooked up, but I've been shooting way too much lately and was fresh out of kitchen passes. :cry

Looking forward to seeing more shots.

-joel

Dave Clee

Very nice panorama !!! I am back and forth on whether I want to take a couple of days to visit DV in late May. Everything I have read is it will be bloody hot !!

Cheers

Dave

coscorrosa

annnna8888 wrote:

Oh my, I'm drooling. Wonderful light indeed. I can imagine your frustration about only having one day there. I often feel the same especially when I'm traveling and it's practically impossible to spend several day at every scenic place. On my last trip to Indonesia I did spend two days at a volcano though just to bo able to shoot one sunrise, one sunset and another sunrise. Crazy photographers!

Ana

Yeah, I never feel that I do the spots I'm within a few hours justice, it's even worse when traveling a thousand miles away and only having a day. I do measure my vacations and travels by the number of times I can shoot at dawn and dusk, the other details aren't nearly as important

coscorrosa

cj99si wrote:

Awesome cant wait for the rest! Perfect stitch, great exposure. Hows Vegas? Anymore day trips planned?

Unfortunately no, I flew in on Friday afternoon and had to leave early on Monday morning, I was there for a wedding on Saturday and wasn't able to do any shooting except Friday evening (about 20 minutes at the Valley of Fire without having a clue about where the good spots were and what to expect), and all day Sunday at Death Valley. I put about 500 miles on the rental car

I would love to go to DV after a rain when the salt flats would show some reflections, or during peak wildflower season in Spring, or on a day with less cloud cover to show some more texture on the sand dunes. But I'm not complaining, the sunrise alone was worth the trip.

coscorrosa

kdog wrote:

Awesome pano, Ron!


Glad to hear you had a great visit at DV. I would have liked to have hooked up, but I've been shooting way too much lately and was fresh out of kitchen passes. :cry

Looking forward to seeing more shots.

-joel

Yeah, if I ever am down there and can definitely plan ahead more than a day that would be cool (I didn't know until a few days before that I would have Sunday free - I was hoping I would, but didn't know for sure).

I really want to hit some more of these national parks (DV, Grand Canyon, Arches, Bryce, Zion, Joshua Tree, the slot canyons, horseshoe bend, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite, Banff, Jasper, ...). The list goes on and on. Hopefully I'll get to see one or two of those before the year is out.

manoli

nice pics
Wonderful shots Ron.I also have been there but once and also has a wonderful opinion of that place and my pics were nowhere as good as your sample shot. Show us some more!!

Dooginfif20

I really need help shooting panos. Mine never seem to work. Do I need to lock in everything or allow the camera to meter the shot and shoot it?

NeilL

Beautiful work, Ron. Thanks! It's very subtle, maybe a little too subtle for the drama in this place, but I guess it is a dawn shot.

I have never been there, and it's difficult to get a sense of scale. Would one quarter inch, say, on the bottom frame of your expanded, expanded version be about the height of a person?

torags

Nice pano

It's got me stoked, I'm scheduled there end of 2nd week in March

Rags

dogwood

coscorrosa wrote:

I still can't get over how awesome Death Valley is.

You know, that was how I felt on my first DV visit too. And I've LIVED (and worked) in both Yellowstone and Yosemite. Death Valley definitely holds it's own though! I've been back four times now-- most recently for a week in October-- and still have places I want to see! Just wait until you jump in a 4x4 and start exploring the backcounty.

Nice image!

coscorrosa

Dooginfif20 wrote:

I really need help shooting panos. Mine never seem to work. Do I need to lock in everything or allow the camera to meter the shot and shoot it?

My method for panos is just like most other landscapes, I manually focus and shoot in aperture priority (and let the camera do the metering, sometimes I'll have an exposure offset of a stop or so). You can also shoot in manual if you want. For panos you have to be a little more cognizant of polarizer effects since you're covering a wider field of view (sometimes I'll just take the polarizer off). Usually you can get a higher rez pano by stitching vertically instead of horizontally, but that's also harder to get straight if you don't have a pano-head or similar.

coscorrosa

NeilL wrote:

Beautiful work, Ron. Thanks! It's very subtle, maybe a little too subtle for the drama in this place, but I guess it is a dawn shot.

I have never been there, and it's difficult to get a sense of scale. Would one quarter inch, say, on the bottom frame of your expanded, expanded version be about the height of a person?

You're right about it being subtle, the sunrise only got better later but I didn't have a pano of it at peak (d'oh!). I can try to play around with this a little more as far as saturation and contrast and see if I like the results better.

I agree about the sense of scale, there's no obvious reference points. A person would be about .5" on the full sized version. The mountains in the background are 10,000 feet tall and the valley floor is about 5 miles across.

Too bad that coyote I saw ran away an hour before sunrise

coscorrosa

dogwood wrote:

You know, that was how I felt on my first DV visit too. And I've LIVED (and worked) in both Yellowstone and Yosemite. Death Valley definitely holds it's own though! I've been back four times now-- most recently for a week in October-- and still have places I want to see! Just wait until you jump in a 4x4 and start exploring the backcounty.

Nice image!

Having a 4x4 would be sweet. There's such an amazing variety of landscapes in Death Valley (mountains, valleys, salt flats, badlands, sand dunes, mud flats, pools/reflections). It's a lot like Olympic National Park in that respect. I'll be back there someday along with some of the other good spots in the SW.

coscorrosa

coscorrosa wrote:

You're right about it being subtle, the sunrise only got better later but I didn't have a pano of it at peak (d'oh!). I can try to play around with this a little more as far as saturation and contrast and see if I like the results better.

I edited the original post to include a more saturated/higher contrast version, which I think I like better.

dlplumer

Love these Ron, and prefer the second.

richtersl

dlplumer wrote:

Love these Ron, and prefer the second.

Me too!