Joshua Cripps
Lovely Light = Lovin' Life
My Portfolio and Photography Services
Absotively, posilutely must be viewed large!
Half Dome and Sentinel Dome taken from Columbia Rock, about 1 mile up the Upper Yosemite Falls trail. Just jammed on up the trail and got here in about 30 minutes. This is just such a fantastic, lesser-seen viewpoint of Yosemite Valley. I once heard that 85% of visitors to Yosemite never get more then a quarter-mile from their vehicles. Incredible, I know, but it means that even with just a little bit of extra effort you can get to places that not that many people see, which makes for some rewarding photography!
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Technical Notes
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ISO 200
12 mm
f/8
1/50 sec and 1/25 sec 2-exposure blend
3-stop Lee soft GND
Theory: I knew depth of field was going to be no problem for this shot since I was focusing fairly far away from me, so I dialed my aperture to f/8 for maximum sharpness. Then I tossed on a 3-stop GND (to balance the light) with a soft edge (to account for the uneven horizon). The three stop didn't quite give me the balance I wanted so I bracketed two exposures to blend later. I wanted to blend rather than stack another GND filter because manual blending gives me more control over the final result, and using two separate exposures rather than the same raw file processed twice means less noise.
For my composition I chose to go for symmetry and placed Half Dome and Sentinel Dome evenly within the frame. There was no compelling immediate foreground to speak of, so I panned up and put more sky into the frame. Then it was a simple matter to wait for the light to move up the face of Half Dome.
~Josh
Lovely Light = Lovin' Life
My Portfolio and Photography Services
Absotively, posilutely must be viewed large!
Half Dome and Sentinel Dome taken from Columbia Rock, about 1 mile up the Upper Yosemite Falls trail. Just jammed on up the trail and got here in about 30 minutes. This is just such a fantastic, lesser-seen viewpoint of Yosemite Valley. I once heard that 85% of visitors to Yosemite never get more then a quarter-mile from their vehicles. Incredible, I know, but it means that even with just a little bit of extra effort you can get to places that not that many people see, which makes for some rewarding photography!
----------------------
Technical Notes
----------------------
ISO 200
12 mm
f/8
1/50 sec and 1/25 sec 2-exposure blend
3-stop Lee soft GND
Theory: I knew depth of field was going to be no problem for this shot since I was focusing fairly far away from me, so I dialed my aperture to f/8 for maximum sharpness. Then I tossed on a 3-stop GND (to balance the light) with a soft edge (to account for the uneven horizon). The three stop didn't quite give me the balance I wanted so I bracketed two exposures to blend later. I wanted to blend rather than stack another GND filter because manual blending gives me more control over the final result, and using two separate exposures rather than the same raw file processed twice means less noise.
For my composition I chose to go for symmetry and placed Half Dome and Sentinel Dome evenly within the frame. There was no compelling immediate foreground to speak of, so I panned up and put more sky into the frame. Then it was a simple matter to wait for the light to move up the face of Half Dome.
~Josh