Since we had such good fortune at Zebriskie Point the night before (see Day 1) we decided to give it a try for sunrise the next morning. The contrast range was so high (even with a 3 stop grad) that I mostly shot HDRs. Back home I batch process them in Photomatix Pro and generate three files for each bracket sequence: Tone Mapped, Detail Enhancer, and Exposure Fusion (this a type of exposure blending while the first two are different ways to do the HDR tone mapping). I then look at the files. Sometimes I like one of the three and will further process it in Photoshop. But most of the time I will like one section of the scene from one file and like another file for the rest of the scene. I’ve not figured out under what circumstances which way of processing will produce the best results. That’s why I generate all three versions.
For this image I blended the sky from the Exposure Fusion and the rock formations from the Detail Enhancer. In this image the color contrast creates distinctive fore, middle, and background. This helps create a sense of depth. The meta data for this image:
D200 with 12-24 @ 16mm
1/2, 1/5 and .8 sec @ f/5.6 ISO 100
Matrix, Aperture Priority, Comp -2/3
For this image I used the Tone Compressor and Detail Enhancer files. The TC file was too dark and the DE was too dark. So I put the DE file on top of the TC file and reduced the opacity of the DE layer to 60%.
Here I like the way the dark line of the wash draws the eye into the center of image while the lines in the clouds do the same thing. This makes the center of the image an anchor point and the eye can go off and explore, come back and then go off another direction.
The meta data for this image:
D200 with 12-24 @ 16mm
1/3, 1/6, .6 sec @ f/5.6 ISO 100
Matrix, Aperture Priority, Comp -2/3
After breakfast we found these salt polygons. What I was trying to do here was to create a composition that took advantage of the repeating pattern in the polygons and at the same time have them form a line to draw the view’s eye into the image. I think the horizontal version does a better job of this but I like the sky in this vertical version. So the vertical version made the selects. I didn’t notice it at the time of capture, but I like how the pattern in the clouds is similar to the pattern in the salt polygons. This helps tie these two parts of the image together.
The meta data for this image:
D200 with 12-24 @ 14mm
1/80 sec @ f/10 ISO 100
Matrix, Aperture Priority, Comp +1
The wind had been blowing pretty strong all day. To give you an idea of how strong, earlier in the day the wind blew over my photo buddy’s (Bill Westerhoff’s) tripod. Fortunately, his camera was not on it when it blew over. Because of the wind we did not try and go to the sand dunes. (We didn’t want to get sandblasted.) So we went exploring and ended up at Badwater late in the afternoon.
I almost walked away from this without taking a picture. Fortunately Bill did take some and showed me the color that he was getting. I have to be honest, in real life, it didn’t look this good. The HDR process can pull out so much.
What you are seeing in the background is a big dust cloud.
The meta data for this image:
D200 with 12-24 @ 12mm
1.6, .8 and 3 sec @ f/8 ISO 100
Matrix, Aperture Priority, Comp 0