Another shot from Shenandoah National Park. I shot this with my brother’s camera. I wanted a vertical of the whole tree and I don’t have the focal length I needed. Upon looking at the file, there was too much light sky at the top. I didn’t like it, so cropped to a horizontal in post.
Is this a composite: No
1/25 sec @ f/11, ISO 400, 52 mm
This composition works fine, I think. Could maybe take of those three branches at the very top. Very nice light. The tree stands out nicely against the foggy background.
You read my mind. I was thinking that after I posted.
Mike,
You beat me to posting my version so I went with another. 
That was a great day of shooting in the fog; much better than our October trip to Ricketts Glen. I was surprised that you went with this version as I thought you didn’t like that stump on the right. The fog was magical and added some beautiful atmospherics and light to the autumn colored woodlands. Looking back we should have climbed that bank to see what we could find farther back in the woods. I agree with @Tony_Kuyper about getting rid of those couple of limbs. Minor stuff though.
Beautiful. Great scene with a very mystical mood and feel. I could see losing the three branches but not really a biggie to me at all. Excellent image.
I think reducing the cyan was a good idea. As with your brother’s image I think the fg leaves look a bit unnaturally oversaturated. I would dial them back ever so slightly. I guess I would not use the tactic of saturating a part of the leaves to bring attention. But in terms of the cyan I think the new version is spot on in terms of producing a natural looking fog. I personally like that dead tree on the far right.
Good call on the cyan reduction, Mike.
Mike, the tree has a very appealing shape, with the draping branches at the top. Overall, I think the composition is very well balanced from left to right, with a good supporting cast of background trees on both sides. Another vote for Tony’s crop of the three branches.
I agree the reduced cyan is a good way to go. I do not find the saturation of the bottom yellow leaves to necessarily be un-natural. The relative difference in yellow saturation top vs. bottom seems consistent with differences in the amount of light and fog in the top vs. bottom. Whether it is “natural” or not is not the most important thing. I think the amount of relative saturation becomes a creative choice, where do you want the viewer to look? At the tree overall, or in the bottom center? In evaluating Tony’s potential crop, I noticed the yellow saturation difference less in a cropped version with part of the top removed. If you left the composition as presented, the overall tree plays a more prominent role, and trying to balance the yellow saturation top vs. bottom may make more sense.
Lovely mood you captured! (@Steve_Kennedy and I recently had a day we were able to shoot some photos with fog and really enjoyed it.) At first I too wasn’t sure about the stump, but viewing more the flow of variation in pattern and clarity from lower right to upper left it’s just right.
I agree about the Cyan reduction as it’s the first thing I noticed on this image. The composition looks pretty good to me and I actually like the dead tree stump. I also like the greenery in contrast to the fall colors. The branches at the top don’t bother me at all. You and Ed sure got these at peak colors. Beautiful image Mike.
