Sprinkled Light

This is another image from my impromptu trip to Goat Rocks. The sun was low over the back of my left shoulder when I took this, and the clouds were dancing through. I took several images with different flower lighting, from full shade to full sunlight. This was my favorite, with somewhat broken light dancing in the Western Anemone and the Indian Paintbrush.

FUJIFILM X-T30
FUJIFILM XF 10-24mm F4 at 10 mm (15 mm equivalent)
1/60 sec. at f/13 and ISO 160
Blend of four images for DOF, plus some extras for clouds. (My favorite image for foreground lighting only had a few clouds, so I blended a couple more images that I took from the same spot that had better clouds but less favorable foreground lighting.)

This may be common knowledge, but an easy way to slip clouds in from a second image when the background blue of the sky matches is to copy the better sky on to a new layer and set the new layer to lighten mode. That way, just the clouds show. This assumes you mask out the areas you don’t want to show, like the land portion in this image.

I’ve also used lens correction/transform for perspective, Puppet Warp to straighten (sort of) that tree in the upper left, and cloned out a couple small branches in the foreground that were very bright.

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
2 Likes

Really nice color, comp and processing. And that’s quite a dominating FG. May I ask you a question? I’m thinking of switching over to Fuji. Have you tried photographing the milky way or stars with the 10-24? If so, were the results acceptable? I seldom shoot the Milky way, but I’d still like that option.

John,

Beautiful mountain landscape image - and perfectly classic near/far composition - with a beautiful mid-ground thrown in with the paintbrush. The blue and whites of the clouds literally top this grand scenic off.

Appreciate the details in your capture and processing. I can’t say I would have noticed (or cared) about the clouds, but I think I can tell upon inspection and with the knowledge - otherwise again, wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

Just a beautifully captured, executed and processed image. Kudos!

Lon

This has a wonderful sense of depth along with a pleasing color palette, John. The clouds are a nice touch as your processing skills paid off rather nicely. Beautifully done IMO.

A beautiful near/far image, really popping and highlighting the foreground. Great color and depth, too. Looks real nice.

The lighting is really nice indeed, John, the temptation with this kind of scene is to wait for the light to get even softer and perhaps get some colors on those clouds. But from the note you have above, it might not even an option. Your processing is spot on. my reservation is only on the 3:2 ratio. I find it a little too “tall”. This is just my preference, though. The flower in the foreground is a new one to me. I don’t think I have ever seen it here.

Thanks for providing the details on how you processed your image John. Lovely wild flowers with a great backdrop. This is a very enjoyable scene.

Really nice shot John. Love the foreground and how it funnels your eyes upward to the sky. The only thing - probably nitpicking - is the sky. There isn’t enough, the blue should be desaturated a touch ?I am not sure but my eye keeps being distracted by it. But it still is a cool shot.

Beautiful work, John. A feast for the eyes with beautiful clarity and great depth. Processing looks good to me.

A gorgeous image John, all the field and processing work certainly paid off for you. I’m impressed with how sharp the anemones look, it’s a product of great technical execution, and some good fortune with the wind, I suspect.

Thanks for the kind words and input, and for the Editor’s Pick. (That’s always an honor, considering the caliber of images posted to this site.)

Only once, on a whim and I did a poor job of it, so I really can’t fairly judge yet. Based on my experience with my prior APS-C sensor (the Nikon D7100), I suspect the X-T30 will be adequate with proper settings and processing, but only adequate. When I wrestled with purchasing a full-frame, it was the low-light performance that really made the decision tough. In the end the light weight of the X-T30 won the day, but if I did not plan to pack the camera around so much I would have gone with the full-frame for exactly that reason. I hope to experiment with starry shots in the future, and I’ll try and post results (if good) or send you a message (if bad).

My original wasn’t very conducive to the aspect ratio and the amount of blue sky changes, but I was curious what the image would look like if it had been. Here’s a variation that I drug around in Photoshop, just to get an idea of what the suggestions might look like for comparison. I also dropped the sky saturation a tad.

John, this is a lovely view. The lighting emphasizes the Anemone well and lets the Paintbrush pull my eyes into the rest of the frame. The clouds add a lot of interest to the sky.