Oak Creek on Fire!

argyle

Shot this at Red Rock Crossing while in Sedona last week. Only had about 15 minutes of light thanks to a hole in the cloud cover....really made for some nice reflections on the creek.

Shot with 5DMkII, 24-105L, CPL, and 3-stop hard GND

kdog

Awesome!! thumb

Was the purpose of the CP to reduce the glare on the water?

Cheers,
-joel

argyle

Pretty much...it can also be used to enhance the reflections, or simply remove them. All depends on how much you "dial in". The CPL is an indispensable tool for landscape shooters...

kdog

argyle wrote:

Pretty much...it can also be used to enhance the reflections, or simply remove them. All depends on how much you "dial in". The CPL is an indispensable tool for landscape shooters...

Yeah, I know, I use one quite a bit myself. I was curious to your motivation in using it for that particular shot, since it wouldn't have much effect with the setting sun at your back otherwise.

-joel

Dogdots

It does look on fire -- beautiful photo

dustin32

Very cool shot, nice that the sunlit part and the shadow meet at natural boundaries for the most part.

thapamd

Awesome shot! Those reflections are like flowing gold. As many times as I've been down to the Southwest, I've never made it to Sedona. Looks like its high time that I went.

argyle

thapamd wrote:

Awesome shot! Those reflections are like flowing gold. As many times as I've been down to the Southwest, I've never made it to Sedona. Looks like its high time that I went.

Thanks Mahesh. BTW, the next full moon in Sedona will occur on July 7th. The very best time to shoot it will be on July 5th...on this date, the setting sun will illuminate the face of the rocks, with the moon coming up behind at the same time. Makes for a somewhat "easy" exposure without the pesky shadows. Waiting until a day later, the sun will have already set before the moon rises, so you'll end up with a "dusky" shot and some shadows. Of course, all of this depends on the cooperation of the clouds and Mother Nature.

wendell

This is beautiful. Great light and depth. Congratulations.
wendell

coscorrosa

Lovely composition, great colors, the moon is just icing on the cake.

I think it would look a little better if the foreground and sky were a little closer in brightness, even with a 3-stop GND there's still quite a bit of difference between the two. Hard shot to expose, but you did good.

argyle

coscorrosa wrote:

Lovely composition, great colors, the moon is just icing on the cake.

I think it would look a little better if the foreground and sky were a little closer in brightness, even with a 3-stop GND there's still quite a bit of difference between the two. Hard shot to expose, but you did good.

The creek was pretty much all in shadow...you can see where the natural shadow line is at the base of the buttes. This is pretty much how it looked to my eye at the time. One mistake that a lot of folks make with GND's is to select a filter that "balances" or "equalizes" out the exposure, when in reality the sky will always be brighter than the foreground. With this in mind, I try to keep about a 1-stop difference between the foreground and sky. But thanks for critiquing...its the only way to improve.