North Dakota Badlands at Teddy Roosevelt National Park

cabbey · August 26, 2009

I recently shot a large pano of the North Dakota badlands, on a day with awesome broken clouds giving some interest to the shapes. It's taken a while to get it stitched together, so I've been looking at it a lot... like to the point I no longer trust my own view of it. :huh But I'm wondering if the color is a bit off still after my corrections early on.

Specifically, I'm wondering if it isn't a bit too green? I have an interested buyer in a very large print of this... like pushing the boundaries of Bay's pano capabilities large.

David_S85 · August 26, 2009

You can always white balance on the clouds, if you don't trust your eyes. Might need more POP. Looks kinda flat. The mid-day light there is very unflatering to the landscape.

thapamd · August 26, 2009

A beautiful pano! There may be a hint of magenta color cast in the sky, but that doesn't bother me at all.

Marc Muench · August 26, 2009

here are the numbers as the Mac Digital Color Meter reads them on my screen showing Safari.

Looks perfect

Although, I think a bit more contrast would help, mainly darker blacks.

Were the wild horses still there?

schmoo · August 26, 2009

Yay cabbey! Show Bay who's boss

I agree that the sun being at a lower angle might not only help emphasize the textures and colors native to the land, but this image still will give the viewer a lot to look at as they stand there marveling.

cabbey · August 27, 2009

Thanks all. It's funny after stepping away from the image for a couple days I really don't see the green cast I was annoyed by anymore. (I'd already been on self imposed exile from it for a day and a half when I posted.)

David, yeah the clouds were what I used to find the white point. Specifically a big puffy one that's barely a dot on the preview. It's the one under the 'ect' of corrections in Marc's post.

I had already bumped the contrast some in PS, but I can see what y'all mean that it's still a little flat. I'll play with a little more.

As y'all noted, the midday light is brutal on this landscape, just like everything else... but this wasn't a planned excursion. This was literally a "hey, we're driving right by it, let's take a couple hours and show Quinn (our 2 year old) the park." The high broken clouds just happened to show up to add some texture to it.

Marc, I'm not sure I recognize the approach there... looking for a magic ratio of R:G:B for just the right "blue sky"? or just using that bit of grey to look for something neutral to look for them being close?

Oh, and yes, the horses, and their friends, were making their presence known.

And Schmoo... so far I think this pano is prooving *it* is the boss.

But I gotta love me the Bay peeps... when I asked about "big panos" they didn't back down, it's looking like the final prints will be 15" tall by 130" long. The final merged image is 44586x5134 px. I'll sample that down to 33088x3810 px for the final print. (it's stitched from 29 5D2 frames.) To a large extent, this was something I was playing with to make sure I was shooting correctly in preparation for Acadia. And to get used to the tools before hand so I was ready. It was just a happy accident that I happened to be shooting a vista that made a former co-worker homesick.

Another shot from that same day that isn't as big, but I think has a better impact:

I've also got some really craptacular video of some bikers from sturgis rolling up that road and over that hill and off toward that thunder cell. maybe need to post that over on advrider, see if any of baldy's inmates recognize themselves in it.

Marc Muench · August 27, 2009

cabbey wrote:

Marc, I'm not sure I recognize the approach there... looking for a magic ratio of R:G:B for just the right "blue sky"? or just using that bit of grey to look for something neutral to look for them being close?

Oh, and yes, the horses, and their friends, were making their presence known.

I really like your road shot better, much more interesting IMO. You might want to crop out the blown sky in the upper left though.

Regarding the RGB numbers, as you know, the ratio is, that when all number are equal, you have achieved neutrality

However, since clouds should be a bit blue or cyan the balance in the numbers was a normal midday cloud, from my experience. I was just proving to your "inner second person":D that you actually knew what you were doing

North Dakota Badlands at Teddy Roosevelt National Park

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