Wasn’t sure about that one at all - never been up it. Lorini mentioned you were up around Tuolumne Meadows, so I figured it might be on the back side of some of the domes in that area, but go for the big names first when guessing!
It’s a pretty big rock formation that juts up against the road at Lake Tenaya. I was hoping I’d see some rock climbers up there since I’d seen them there before, but didn’t know for sure since it’s only the second day that Tioga has been open. But yeah, there were a lot of folks actually.
— Alan
Wonderful pictures. Makes me super sad at how crappy the conditions were for my Yosemite visit (not that my pics would’ve come close to yours regardless, but still). No water in the falls, nor green in the meadows.
Reemul
1884
OK for something a bit different. In my spare time I have been doing a poster for my 3 year son for his bedroom wall. It’s part of the Wildergorn series called The Cave Fishers (Drawing by Wildergorn). Took between 25 and 30 hours to complete. It’s 68cm (27") by 101cm (40")
The Cave Fishers by Reemul, on Flickr
Reemul, that is exceptional. Top work!
It’s also the first hit I get on google if I search “The Cave Fishers”. :)
Edit - Ahem, here is a direct link to the full res version (3119 x 4652) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/reemul/8743748287/sizes/o/in/pool-81127001@N00/
Edit 2 - Ah, I just googled Wildergorn and I see what’s going on now! Still great work, and you may have just inspired me to so the same for my boy coming in a few months.
Reemul
1886
Thanks, i’m going to get Potters Road next for the other son. http://wildergorn.com/potters-road.htm
The pens I used were Stabilo Pen 68 (recommended by Wildergorn), pack of 40 colours which had a lot of greens, blues, pinks, oranges etc. Also did the people in a pale pencil color.
SAR team practicing swift-water rescues in the fast-flowing Merced:
These are not specifically Yosemite but in the eastern Sierra Nevada:
— Alan
Reemul
1889
Attended my Brother in Law’s wedding on Saturday. My youngest who is just 3 carried the rings. 2 proud dad pictures.
Aidan by Reemul, on Flickr
Aidan Bench by Reemul, on Flickr
Nice try Alan, but it’s obvious that’s some kind of CG scenery from the latest next-gen graphics engine. I know because a vista like that couldn’t possibly exist in real life.
I’ve been everywhere in those shots, but my pics don’t look anywhere near as nice. Very impressive!
IT’s the lens flare that gave it away, right?
— Alan
Gendal
1894
I can match Alan 1 for 1 on every shot of Yosemite he has posted but I don’t think there is a Lightroom wizard alive who could make mine that nice.
Alan,
Any chance you’d be willing to post before/after shots for one or two of those Yosemite shots showing the difference you’re getting in Lightroom? I’ve got my shots that I took in Ireland, and in some cases I get shots that are much prettier with some heavy adjustment in Lightroom, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m veering too far away from realism. I’m curious as to how much you’re changing things like color saturation and highlight/shadow alignment. (I guess in some sense it doesn’t matter if it’s ‘realistic’ or not if you like the way it turns out, but I’ve been taking pictures long enough that I can’t help look at my shots and feel I should have done better behind the lens so there’d be less to do in Lightroom, and feeling like I’m cheating by tweaking things heavily in Lightroom).
Sure I can tonight. Generally my thought process is to bring out colors and make it more vibrant. Skies should be interesting and not dull; overpowering whites and highlights should be dimmed, some details brought out, and interesting things should pop out better.
Sometimes I might go a bit overboard as I like to do different things, but sometimes curb back and move in another fashion. It’s an evolving thing, where new software and updates offer different capabilities. I think I’ve upgraded my process a bit and streamlined some things (which is why Lightroom is so helpful). Sometimes I go fairly light, but others I want to filter a lot. It really, really depends.
Then again, when you think of filtering and stuff, that’s why you have filters on the lenses to begin with. Now you’re just filtering in software. Having the raw data is incredibly helpful.
This for instance has a lot of stuff going on and I’m still not really happy with it.
— Alan
Sure I can tonight. Generally my thought process is to bring out colors and make it more vibrant. Skies should be interesting and not dull; overpowering whites and highlights should be dimmed, some details brought out, and interesting things should pop out better.
Sometimes I might go a bit overboard as I like to do different things, but sometimes curb back and move in another fashion. It’s an evolving thing, where new software and updates offer different capabilities. I think I’ve upgraded my process a bit and streamlined some things (which is why Lightroom is so helpful). Sometimes I go fairly light, but others I want to filter a lot. It really, really depends.
Then again, when you think of filtering and stuff, that’s why you have filters on the lenses to begin with. Now you’re just filtering in software. Having the raw data is incredibly helpful.
This for instance has a lot of stuff going on and I’m still not really happy with it.
In a general sense I think my raw photo-taking capability is probably as good as everyone else’s. I do jigger a lot with my in-camera settings and take multiple photos at slightly different settings. For instance, I usually get a clue for the lighting with auto/no-flash, then go to manual and approximate to see if I can get it better (which generally means darker but not always). Having a mix of photos can help you choose which is better to start with. It’s kind of manual self-bracketing. If you’re auto-bracketing, that works too, especially if you’re HDRing. Note that HDRing doesn’t have to produce insanely funky photos–but at the minimum should let you produce images that you would not normally be able to do in a single shot.
— Alan
Sorry, would have done this earlier but I didn’t have much internet access all weekend. mouselock asked about some comparative pre- and post-processing images. As I’ve been saying, taking the photo is only half of it; the other half is really post-processing.
For this reflective shot, I knew I had the still reflection, it was just a question of deciding how much light to let it because the sky was partly cloudy and later afternoon. It’s still somewhat dark, but I felt like I really need to emphasize the difference in sunlight and darker/shadowy areas. The reflection was a bit darker than the source, so it had to be brightened and a little bit of correction by hand needed to be applied just to make it as even as I could (but without spending a ton of time on it):
Again this shot is fairly dark, but it’s much later in the day but I wanted to bring out the colors more associated with the sunset and the terrain, not to mention some detail in the onlookers as well as the terrain–but adjust too much and you get a ton of noise. And I didn’t want to make the colors too crazy so… moderation a bit:
Bit of an opposite situation here; up in the high terrain above Mammoth, I managed to overexpose a bit in a lot of photos as there was still a ton of snow on the ground. So my object was to warm it up a bit and bring down the light to acceptable levels.
— Alan
Couple of things… my wide-angle I almost always have a circular polarizer, so the skies are usually darker when they hit the camera. But I love darker, more vibrant, and extremely active skies. So I’m always software-filtering towards that goal in software. This then requires that I may have to bring out some opposing effects in other areas where the filters hurt the foreground in some fashion. Sometimes it’s just a key of knowing which way you want to filter first and then adjusting.
Few more…
For this, was hard to get the warmth out of many of these as I’m shooting with the sun up on the upper left, so a lot of stuff is going to wind up naturally dark or way over exposed. So I added some life to the rock and of course, wanted the sky to look like the sky and not just something bland. It was way too tough and time-consuming to bring out any detail in the individuals so I just left them relatively dark:
This is one I put up just recently. Usually shooting in the daylight across a long distance, the daylight, haze and sometimes the heat can really make images just bland and uninteresting from top to bottom. So for this I want a lot more detail and a bit of color but try not to go too crazy. And the sky, again, needs help:
— Alan
Thanks Alan. When I have a chance to sit down and put together my images I’ll post similar comparisons, but it does me good to see that many of your pre-filtered shots have the same issues I’m seeing in mine (namely, the effect of haze + strong sunlight tends to really drown out a lot of detail).
Of course, I have some unique challenges too… I apparently got a bit of dust inside my UV filter that would randomly flip out and block shots, so I have to do actual touch up to a lot of stuff, and there were times/places I completely blew out the sensor… (taking pictures in Ireland of darkish foreground features with brightly backlit but constant clouds overhead against the silhouettes makes it hard to recover much of anything). In my case I need more practice with the camera to get back to the point where I remember to change ISO and F stops with the lighting conditions. Unfortunately (or fortunately I suppose) I’ll have plenty of time for that practice before I get a chance to get back to Ireland again. :/
