Peach Flavoured Serenity

[Octane]

"Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes
Inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning"

The first pure rays strike the fresh overnight dusting on Treble Cone, Aspiring National Park.

RAW blend for sky, mountain and lake.

Slightly higher resolution available here (http://users.tpg.com.au/octane2/pfs.html).

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
0.80s f/16.0 at 40.0mm iso100

Comments and critique, welcome.

H

Edit: ugh, the mountain looks like it's radioactive. I'll sort it out on another iteration. Too tired now.

[batema]

Thats a beautiful shot. Well done.

Mark

[troypiggo]

Change the title to "Radioactive Flavoured Serenity" and you're done. :)

Beautifully composed shot. We must talk some time about your post-processing steps for landscapes. I'll play the grasshopper, you are of course the master.

[floyd_2]

Great shot (as usual) Humayun. Have you done much HDR landscape photography? Not every camera supports +/- 2EV bracketing, but you can do it manually without too much trouble anyway. Software like Photomatix Pro makes the HDR side of post processing fairly easy and massively increases the dynamic range of the shot.

[multiweb]

It's got that lord of the ring feeling indeed :)

[Liz]

:lol:
No, it is a beautiful image, lovely colours and compositon. :thumbsup:

[Ric]

Great looking image H.

It really has the look of an oil painting by a grand master.

Top stuff

[Lumen Miner]

H knows all about HDR, he taught me.
His works go far beyond HDR now, he blends and selectively illuminates areas much like HDR. By doing it yourself you control what elements have illumination, unlike HDR which just illuminates everything and gives a generally nasty looking fake image.

He creates different layers, to seperate what he is working on.
I'm not quite up to different layers, I just prefer to selectively luminate on the one layer. :)

[Steve_E]

Wow, what a stunning view. Amazing capture, just beautiful.

Steve

[Lumen Miner]

Nice image H, pity about the mountain tops. Were they blown in shot or did they just come out weird after PP?
They almost pass as is, could you grab them with the wand tool and switch their colour to a mid orange?

[floyd_2]

Hi Mitchell,
I agree that HDR can produce a fake looking image. One of my brothers is into landscape HDR which is why I asked. The images that I've seen from him are all a little over the top colour and lighting wise, however, I can see that going HDR in a more laid back fashion could really bring out some extra aspects of an image without making them look fake. A tricky business to pull it off properly I'm sure.

I had to smirk at your description of HDR as that's exactly how my brother's shots appear to me. I'll look at the photo once again with new eyes.

[Lumen Miner]

:) Don't get me wrong I actually like HDR, but not on full blown settings, the best HDR is when you can not pick that it is HDR being used.
I have several threads in the terrestrial forum, where I have posted HDR images, most turned out horrid yet I liked them because it was a new skill I learned.

[lacad01]

Nice colours and conveys quite a tranquil or peaceful scene.:thumbsup:

[Octane]

Mark,

Thank you.



Troy,

How apt! I will be revisiting this region and will find a nicer location to shoot from.



Dean,

Cheers.

HDR, in my opinion, just does not work -- I've ended up with halos (for example around straight lines) and bizarre colouring artifacts. I have had far greater success by manually blending and adjusting through Photoshop whilst trying to adhere to the Zone System. Of course, this doesn't always work and I end up doing what I think works.



Marc,

Thanks, mate. Looking forward to heading back so I can do some more.



Liz,

Thanks!



H

[Octane]

Ric,

Thanking you. If that's the kind of response it illicits in my viewer, then I know my work is done.



Steve,

Thanks. Sunrise there is a sight to behold.



Mitchell,

They were blown at 0 EV on the base image. Trying to blend -1 with 0 EV images just didn't look right, so, I've left it as is.

Changing the hue might just work. I'll give it a go when I'm ready to print this.



Adam,

Thanks. It definitely is peaceful. The only thing to be heard at that time of morning is birdsong.



Thanks, all.

H