First time post. 
Had a dusting of snow on Mingus Mountain so I grabbed the tripod and hit the trails… thanks for any critiques.
Is the b/w conversion too over the top? Also, due to my vantage point I wasn’t able to grab an optimal framing so I cropped 16x9 to get rid of the “dead space” at the bottom of the frame.
Is this a composite: No
iso 64, 70mm, f/16, 30 seconds, Capture One
(trying another upload, the first appears to be posterized…)
Hi Jay, welcome to NPN! Really beautiful image. I like how the light is hitting the snow on the mountain. I also really love the movement in the clouds above with your ss. It’s very dramatic. I personally feel like I would like to see the ‘dead space’ … It seems like it would maybe have something more leading to the grand vista? Just my thoughts. Great first image! Looking forward to seeing more of your work!
Hi and welcome aboard, @swartzfeger - I hope NPN becomes your favorite photography hang out and resource. For a first post, this is a grabber. The crop suits the way the light is hitting the mountains and the drama that brings. Super job with the shutter speed as well. Insofar as processing goes, I find the sky to be a bit dark and looks deliberately manipulated instead of natural. How you leave it depends on the kind of image you want - artistic license or more documentarian. If you do decide to lighten it, open the shadows at the lower elevations, too, for balance and realism.
Hope to see more of your work and hear what you have to say about other photos you see here on NPN.
Jay, this is a wonderful first post. B&W images or conversions can be a challenge needless to say. It’s like a car all painted black that shows every nick. However, I’m not seeing anything to be concerned about with this image it looks very nice to me.
Welcome to the NPN community. Feel free to post and comment as time allows… 
Jay, welcome to NPN and a beautiful first post. Depending on the scene, I am a fan of a strong contrast in B&W and this one looks spot on to my eye. Getting ultra picky, I might clone out the horizonal bit of snow in the lit trees center but very minor. Excellent image and great processing. I am looking forward to seeing more of your work and catching your thoughts on the work of others.
Thank you all for the warm welcome and thoughtful replies. I “discovered” NPN through the F-stop podcast so props to Matt! Look forward to jumping into the fray here 
What a wonderful first post, Jay. Welcome to NPN. This is a sweet scene and the B&W presentation is spot on. I love it all around. Print, frame, hang, and enjoy.
Splendid and dramatic mountain scene! I like this high-contrast b&w landscape. The struggle between the very detailed mountain and the soft and undefined clouds is very captivating, excellent choice of the shutter time.
Beautiful shot. My only criticism is that it looks like the left side of the ridge got darkened in post. Am I right or was there actually shadow along just the top of the ridge?
Thanks Antonello… I did selective high pass sharpening so the clouds could remain soft!
You’re probably not wrong Benj… the ridge was somewhat dark, but overall, I was trying to isolate the center without doing an outright and obvious vignette. And I was definitely sloppy during this edit with the edge burns so I need to go back for the final final (and also figure out why the jpeg file is posterizing, it’s doing it on my main site as well). Thanks for your time and kind words!
The new sky selection tool in LR should help! I just posted my first photo on here as well and it also appeared posterized. Someone suggested it may be due to the fact that I edited it in Photoshop 16 bit but it portrays on here in 8 bit. I’m not really sure but that sounds plausible.
First off welcome to NPN, Jay. I love a good B&W and this certainly falls in that category! The light in this scene is gorgeous and he drama with the clouds ramps up the mood. Wonderful range of tones in this beauty. Looking forward to more of your posts and comments on other images.
Welcome Jay!! You’ll find a great group here! This is a wonderful first post and a great exploration of B/W. I love the motion blur of the clouds against the mountain and the dramatic tonalities.
Even when you process in PS in “16” bits (actually less but that’s the size of the number box), there will always be a drop in the available tonal range going to JPEG, which compresses everything to 8 bits. The only way to minimize it is to do as much heavy tonal lifting as possible in raw conversion, which has more tonal overhead.
(I drove near Mingus Mountain a couple of weeks ago on a brief trip down that way, and didn’t know about it. But the midday light was no good anyway, and no time to explore. Next trip…)
Welcome, Jay…I’m relatively new here as well. I too love B&W and am learning a great bit about conversion posting from this site. Always something to learn and that’s what keeps the gray matter from going all mushy.
At first glance, I was very much enthralled with this image but the more I looked at it, the more I felt the brightness of the light on the side of the mountain was a tad too much. It is a dramatic scene, but to me, drama doesn’t have to smack you in the face to have impact; sometimes, I just want to gently slide into a scene and this is one of those.
I did a zone map on just that section of the photo and brought the value down by about 5%, which to me took off the glare and still left an oozey, smoothie calming scene. In Photoshop, I think the lower hills have just the right amount of shadow detail, so left that and the sky/clouds alone.
Thanks Chris! I have Greg Benz’s Lumenzia and my first task after I get over this cold is to rejigger the whole thing via zone maps.
Hope you feel better soon, Jay. Please post your rework when you have a chance. I’d love to see it.
Welcome Jay!
That mountain has a lot of significance for me; my mom was born and raised in it’s shadow. I love the drama you’ve captured. I too noticed the dark ridgeline and think it would be worth removing that, but otherwise love the drama you’ve created.
Welcome Jay, what a great image to start with !
I’m a big fan of mountain photography, and B&W, so you hit the right spot with me. My only critique is that the contour of the mountain appear like a dark line, almost as if it was cut. Is it due to the jpg compression here on the website, or the post processing? It happens to me very often when I work on the sky.
I think what you may be seeing is the line of pine trees that crown the mountain… I didn’t mask anything here or separate the mountain from the sky so I don’t think it was post-proc (but I will go back and look!)
