Molten Rock, Molten Water

schmoo

One of the highlights from our weekend trip to the Mt. Shasta area is Mossbrae Falls. Thank you to the Dgrinner who introduced me to this place - I saw a thread here in Landscapes months ago and the image never left my mind. As soon as I saw it I said "We have to go there!"

It's a wonderful little corner of gold rush California, seemingly on it's last legs but with obviously it's own little gems to offer.

TS pano:


Lightspills and the curtain call:


And just for fun, here were my companion adventurers. Tilt-focusing not quite right :lol3



There are several falls of this type in the area, created by water flowing through lava rock, but we only had time to hit this one. And it's so beautiful, but a real doozy to shoot. :rolleyes

raebrown

Wow...excellent captures Schmoo.

dlplumer

Great set Schmoo. I especially love that second one

Danny

Snowgirl

dlplumer wrote:

Great set Schmoo. I especially love that second one

Danny

Ditto!

rwells

Schmoo,

That second shot is amazing


Great comp, colors, patterns ~ complete eye candy!

RBK

Loved the 2nd one.... And could you please brief me more on Tilt-focus, I mean the technique used..

RBK

schmoo

Thanks for the comments, everyone. And RBK the main reason why the tilt function was created was to tilt the plane of focus such that you can get things in the foreground and background in focus at once. However it's kind of hard to do, especially at the distance I think I was shooting. But hey isn't the rule "focus on the eyes"?

coscorrosa

Love those seeping waterfalls, awesome! Glad you're having fun with that tilt-shift lens - I think I'm going to try the poor mans version of that (take two exposures with narrow DOF and do a gradient mask exposure blend - I have no idea if that will work, but I might try it out).

My favorite shot is probably the first, really cool. I also like the second, but I think it might benefit with a little more horizontal separation between the primary waterfall and that awesome foreground rock (i.e., move to the left a little).

chrismoore

Love those! I think the first would look great in color??

RBK

schmoo wrote:

Thanks for the comments, everyone. And RBK the main reason why the tilt function was created was to tilt the plane of focus such that you can get things in the foreground and background in focus at once. However it's kind of hard to do, especially at the distance I think I was shooting. But hey isn't the rule "focus on the eyes"?

Thanks for the info... interested to see more of this kinda stuff!! I shall give a try on the poor man's version.

rainbow

Beautiful shots of an obviously beautiful place. Glad the trip went well.

And the third shot is really cool to give a taste of the potential of what you were after.

Looking forward to other shots from your trip.

ian408

You need to visit Burney Falls....these are great.

schmoo

Thanks, all! Yeah I agree the place is a breathtaking green but it's so hard to capture accurately in-camera. I don't know what is up with that, but most of the shots I tried processing of the falls were a weird crazy concoction of too cool, too warm, and under/over-exposed all at once.

Waterfalls are the post-processor's nightmare! :splat

coscorrosa wrote:

Love those seeping waterfalls, awesome! Glad you're having fun with that tilt-shift lens - I think I'm going to try the poor mans version of that (take two exposures with narrow DOF and do a gradient mask exposure blend - I have no idea if that will work, but I might try it out).

My favorite shot is probably the first, really cool. I also like the second, but I think it might benefit with a little more horizontal separation between the primary waterfall and that awesome foreground rock (i.e., move to the left a little).

Thanks for the great feedback, Ron! And a TS is a nice lens to use and if you're curious, then renting one for a couple of weekends is a good way to go. It's a special tool that can be really frustrating at times, but it's a lot of fun especially after you take it as your only lens and force yourself to get acquainted with it.

Funny you mention that about the rock, because I took the shot from that viewpoint specifically to get the falls to line up with the sunspot on the rock. But I'll go through my shots and see if I took any with that suggestion. I'm pretty sure I did.

In the meantime I'll throw forth another one that I'm kind of on the fence about:

Cuong

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Cuong

redleash

#2

Excellent shot, Schmoo!

coscorrosa

schmoo wrote:

Thanks, all! Yeah I agree the place is a breathtaking green but it's so hard to capture accurately in-camera. I don't know what is up with that, but most of the shots I tried processing of the falls were a weird crazy concoction of too cool, too warm, and under/over-exposed all at once.

Waterfalls are the post-processor's nightmare! :splat



Thanks for the great feedback, Ron! And a TS is a nice lens to use and if you're curious, then renting one for a couple of weekends is a good way to go. It's a special tool that can be really frustrating at times, but it's a lot of fun especially after you take it as your only lens and force yourself to get acquainted with it.

Funny you mention that about the rock, because I took the shot from that viewpoint specifically to get the falls to line up with the sunspot on the rock. But I'll go through my shots and see if I took any with that suggestion. I'm pretty sure I did.

In the meantime I'll throw forth another one that I'm kind of on the fence about:

Wow, this one is my favorite of the series!

As for waterfalls the only time I can shoot them with any results at all is during an overcast day, or if they're completely in shade (and then warm them up in post). They look better after a good rain too.

The compositional suggestion is somwhat arbitrary (see my updated signature), I just feel that the two primary objects competed with each other more than complimented, though I could look at the composition I had in mind and come to the reverse conclusion too. This is why I try every permutation of every possible composition and pick the good ones later I have the 24mm T/S but it's collecting dust. Time to pull it out or sell it!

schmoo

coscorrosa wrote:

Wow, this one is my favorite of the series!

As for waterfalls the only time I can shoot them with any results at all is during an overcast day, or if they're completely in shade (and then warm them up in post). They look better after a good rain too.

The compositional suggestion is somwhat arbitrary (see my updated signature), I just feel that the two primary objects competed with each other more than complimented, though I could look at the composition I had in mind and come to the reverse conclusion too. This is why I try every permutation of every possible composition and pick the good ones later I have the 24mm T/S but it's collecting dust. Time to pull it out or sell it!

:lol4 I love your new sig although I don't agree with it!

I have to admit that while I was out shooting I was thinking about the workflows of the landscapers on Dgrin like you, Danny, Mahesh, etc who go out for a weekend and do nothing but shoot-shoot-shoot, and come back like an hour later with some perfectly processed photos! I can only think that part of this success is that you guys shoot a lot so you have a lot of choices on what to pick. (there's other stuff there like light and weather mojo and good ol' know-how, but I can at least work on my input/output ratio)

Anyway, it's a good lesson to come back here and see what other Dgrinners have been doing, especially as not all of us made it to a workshop or shootout this month.