Pertinent technical details or techniques: Nikon D7100, 16-85 mm at 85mm, 1/6s, f11. Processed with Lightroom and Photoshop.
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The Santa Ana mountains part of the Cleveland National Forest, looking north from the foothills of south Orange Co. Lots of trails to keep a hiker busy. Most days it is pretty easy to keep your “social distance”. Loved the little bit of glow on the peaks and ridgeline. Is there too much sky? I think it helps the with trying to capture the quiet softness of nightfall. Also I used the Lr clarity slider to get better detail on the ridge…now I’m thinking, maybe too much. Thanks for comments and any suggestions.
I like the image as is. On my monitor the clarity adj looks good. I don’t think there’s too much sky. I tried cropping to more of a pano, but IMO it didn’t improve anything. Nice shot.
Stephen,
I have to agree with my brother as this looks just fine as is. I really like the subtle kiss of warm light in the sky and on the BG mountains. I think you succeeded in capturing the “quiet softness of nightfall” perfectly as this has a nice relaxing feel to it. Looking out over the mountains as the sun sets sure does seem like a wonderful way to end the day to me.
Hi Stephan, I like this image for it’s calm and gentle mood. I think a lot of this mood comes from the sky, and I like how much sky you included here. I think this works better as presented rather than trying some type of pano crop. Regarding the clarity in the mountains, it looks fine to me.
My only suggestion would be to add a slight bump in mid-tone contrast to the sky (but not the mountains). I might also consider a very slight increase in saturation in magenta/pink, both on the sky and the mountains. I would only do a tiny bit, you don’t want to lose the gentle mood of the image.
I think hearing your description and intent for the image creates a different set of expectations for me than if I was just casually viewing the image. Also, size matters and how big I visualize such an image makes a substantial difference in how I experience it. This image is easier to appreciate when visualized full size and the subtle light is pleasing and calming to see. The amount of sky present gives it much “visual weight” and juxtaposes nicely with the mountain range…especially as they share color range. There is a predominance of texture in the sky to the right and upper aspect of the image so cropping would hurt the quality of the sky a good bit. I really like this as presented.
