Black Light
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The cliff on the right is the "Painted Wall", a 2,000+ ft vertical drop, named for the streaks of Pegmatite (no, I don't know what that is either) that run across it. This is a lesser known park in western Colorado, seemingly overshadowed by its neighbors like Canyonlands nearby in Arizona. Of the many great locations visit on recent trip with Kevin Benedict, this park really affected me. I love the different textures in the canyon, and I especially loved the quality of light streaking down the canyon in late afternoon.
Photographically I found this to be a very challenging location for many reasons. It's hard to get a photo that truly communicates the scope along with the magnificent coloring and some of the nuanced details. Shooting in to the setting sun created a lot of unpleasant sun spots on many of my shots. Also, the Painted Wall has a very large deep crevasse in it which tends to detract from the composition. Here I used a nearly square crop to largely eliminate the crevasse. I also tried some panorama shots which give a different kind of feel, and I may post one of those in future as well (I had a hard time choosing!). There is a vast range in tone between the bright sun and the dark regions at the bottom of the canyon. I found that a multiple exposure fusion was the only way I could adequately deal with the dynamic range. I tried to process it in such a way as to not make it scream 'HDR' (thought its still pretty obvious it is a multiple exposure).
I also took this opportunity to use the 'pixel shift' feature of the new Pentax K-3 ii, which uses the in-body image stabilization to take 4 pictures for each image, each shifted by 1 pixel in order to fully expose each pixel for true RGB (much like a foveon sensor). It then combines them in camera. So in fact, this photo is a fusion of 12 different images, 3 different exposures with 4 shots each. Theoretically this makes for lower noise, better dynamic range and greater clarity. While I have no objective proof that this works, I am quite impressed with the level of detail my relatively inexpensive APS-C Pentax was able to extract from this scene. While this feature is only useful in limited circumstances, it seems to be very effective in those cases where it can be used.. The Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 Art lens also contributes, as this lens is very very sharp when properly focused and exposed.
Black Light
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The cliff on the right is the "Painted Wall", a 2,000+ ft vertical drop, named for the streaks of Pegmatite (no, I don't know what that is either) that run across it. This is a lesser known park in western Colorado, seemingly overshadowed by its neighbors like Canyonlands nearby in Arizona. Of the many great locations visit on recent trip with Kevin Benedict, this park really affected me. I love the different textures in the canyon, and I especially loved the quality of light streaking down the canyon in late afternoon.
Photographically I found this to be a very challenging location for many reasons. It's hard to get a photo that truly communicates the scope along with the magnificent coloring and some of the nuanced details. Shooting in to the setting sun created a lot of unpleasant sun spots on many of my shots. Also, the Painted Wall has a very large deep crevasse in it which tends to detract from the composition. Here I used a nearly square crop to largely eliminate the crevasse. I also tried some panorama shots which give a different kind of feel, and I may post one of those in future as well (I had a hard time choosing!). There is a vast range in tone between the bright sun and the dark regions at the bottom of the canyon. I found that a multiple exposure fusion was the only way I could adequately deal with the dynamic range. I tried to process it in such a way as to not make it scream 'HDR' (thought its still pretty obvious it is a multiple exposure).
I also took this opportunity to use the 'pixel shift' feature of the new Pentax K-3 ii, which uses the in-body image stabilization to take 4 pictures for each image, each shifted by 1 pixel in order to fully expose each pixel for true RGB (much like a foveon sensor). It then combines them in camera. So in fact, this photo is a fusion of 12 different images, 3 different exposures with 4 shots each. Theoretically this makes for lower noise, better dynamic range and greater clarity. While I have no objective proof that this works, I am quite impressed with the level of detail my relatively inexpensive APS-C Pentax was able to extract from this scene. While this feature is only useful in limited circumstances, it seems to be very effective in those cases where it can be used.. The Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 Art lens also contributes, as this lens is very very sharp when properly focused and exposed.