Grand Teton NP

Garrett

Here are some shots from a trip to Grand Teton NP last September. The weather was nice, but a few clouds in the sky would have been a plus. C&C welcome.

Schwabacher Landing:
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.


Mormon Row:
6.

7.

8.

9.


Snake River Overlook
10.


Photos taken with a Nikon D40X and the kit lens (18-55mm f/3.5-5.6)

thapamd

Beautiful series, Garrett! I love the Tetons. I know all these places well. My favorite are your shots of Mormon row. I think you could try a little highlight recovery to darken the sky and lit mountain tops a bit.

Garrett

thapamd wrote:

Beautiful series, Garrett! I love the Tetons. I know all these places well. My favorite are your shots of Mormon row. I think you could try a little highlight recovery to darken the sky and lit mountain tops a bit.

Thanks for input. I'm using Lightroom 1.x so my highlight recovery affects the entire image and tends to darken the foreground more than I like. Maybe it's time to upgrade .

thapamd

Garrett wrote:

Thanks for input. I'm using Lightroom 1.x so my highlight recovery affects the entire image and tends to darken the foreground more than I like. Maybe it's time to upgrade .

Yes, upgrade...the recovery tool alone is worth the price of admission

ront

Great series of photos here. I really like #7 a lot. I agree with Mahesh's comments also. I really like the reflection in the first picture as the detail of the mountains is very clear in the reflection. I do think this could be corrected with LR2. Trying HDR may tame it a bit also.

Still, I enjoyed your photos a lot.

Ron

NorthernFocus

Nice set of images. We're planning a trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons this September. I'll be thrilled if I come away with images like these. Nice work

RaymondPhotos

Great photos. My favorite is #7

rwells

Very nice series indeed.

Due to the comp, #8 gets my favorite vote


Thanks for posting.

Reverb

Great photos. I love #8 especially.

Garrett

Thanks for the comments everyone. Would a circular polarizer have helped bring some color to the sky and contrast to the mountains? Basically, would using a CP be a no-brainer for situations like this?

NorthernFocus

It looks like you were at right angle to the sun so yes a polarizer whould have helped. What would have helped more with the dynamic range between mountains and foreground would have been a graduated ND filter. Previous posters have suggested doing the correction in LR or using HDR to the same end. But by reducing the DR in the field with a GND gives you even more flexibility in post processing.

Garrett

articblooms wrote:

It looks like you were at right angle to the sun so yes a polarizer whould have helped. What would have helped more with the dynamic range between mountains and foreground would have been a graduated ND filter. Previous posters have suggested doing the correction in LR or using HDR to the same end. But by reducing the DR in the field with a GND gives you even more flexibility in post processing.

Thanks for the tip articblooms. I've been eyeing the Cokin z-pro holder and some Singh-Ray 4x6 filters for a while now. Any recommendations on grad ND filters that are a little more budget friendly? I've read that the cokin ND's give an undesirable colorcast. Also, the two vertical schwabacher landing shots (2. and 3.) were 2 exposures blended in PS. That was my only option for getting the foreground and reflection exposed without blowing out the mountains and sky. A grad ND would have been handy.

NorthernFocus

I use Cokin GND and a three stop ND. My experience has been that there is no perceptible color cast for short exposure times. I have experience color shifts on longer exposures. Here's a link to an image similar to yours taken with a Cokin GND with no perceptible color cast. On the other hand, you can read more about a problem I had with the Cokin 3-stop ND in this thread.

Secluded Valley

Beautiful series, Garrett. Grand Teton is my second favorite park (next to Yellowstone); I know all the places you shot well. The mountains in the Schwabacher shots seem to be a little too light on my screen; as arcticblooms suggested, a GND would probably have helped out. My favorite shots are the two vertical Schwabacher shots and the Snake River Overlook shot. Thanks for sharing.

Kristine