Misty Twin Peaks & Mountain Crevices

[Brownbear]

Following are two images of the mountain peaks in Squamish, BC. I'm getting smart about photographing mountains. These were taken after a leisurely 10 minute on a new Gondola that allows easier access to this area (normally a 4 hour hike), and best of all there are miles of back country surrounded by mountains that I hope to explore. I hope to talk a friend into camping overnight with me one day so I can catch the sunrise.


Aperture Priority 300 mm focal length ISO 100

I like this image and have a few several variations, landscape and some with less mist on the peaks. I would like to bring out the mist on the peaks in a stronger way. And just receive some feedback to help me bring out the best in the image.


1.

f/16 SS 1/100



2.

f/16 SS 1/125

I'm not sure if this image is a keeper because of the trees on the bottom. I lightened up the rocks to bring the detail by lifting the shadows using the curves tool. I didn't lighten the mountains in the first image as much.



In summary, I would appreciate some advice (rather than sample edits by others) on how I might enhance the mist on the mountain peaks, and post processing these images. Just advice, and then I will give it a try tomorrow.

And as always a critique on my composition is truly appreciate. Thank you.

[wtlwdwgn]

Christina, of the two I like the first one better with the ridge leading me into the image. There isn't a lot of detail in the snowfields on the left. With bright areas in an image I would bump the Exposure Compensation to at least +1. Just my two cents.

[Brownbear]

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your feedback. Truly appreciated. After I receive more feedback on the images, I will review and look for others with more detail and/or try to bring out the detail in the snow.

I had challenges with not clipping the sky and bits of snow so most were shot with a wee bit of minus exposure compensation, minus 1 for the first shot.

Christina, of the two I like the first one better with the ridge leading me into the image. There isn't a lot of detail in the snowfields on the left. With bright areas in an image I would bump the Exposure Compensation to at least +1. Just my two cents.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done, I don't think the trees are cause for dropping the image, think of them as repeated shapes of the above peaks.

[Mike Buckley]

I like the misty look in the first one as is. I would probably crop a little at the top because I like tight crops. I'd like to see more detail in the shadow tones like in your second photo. Try to bring out more detail in the snow using the same techniques that have been discussed for bringing it out in whitewater and white feathers on a bird. The light may be so flat in some areas of the snow that there is no more detail but I would try before being convinced.

The composition of the second photo works better for me as a square aspect ratio. The trees at the bottom are especially effective in providing scale using that crop. I would raise the black point (doing so doesn't lose the detail that you brought out in the shadow tones) and correct the slight blue cast.

Why were you shooting at f/16 when your lens is probably sharper at f/8 or f/11?

[NorthernFocus]

Hi, Christina. As with the birds, your landscapes are much improved. I like the tight shots of the mountains focusing on detailed aspects of them rather than the broad vistas. I really like that first shot. I'll bet as you stood there the mist was continuously changing. On the second, as Mike mentioned the trees at bottom do give a sense of scale to the image. In such cases including or excluding them should be a conscious decision based on what you are trying to achieve and whether they support your intent. As currently composed it does look a bit random, however. Either a bit more trees or none might have worked better.

Mike pretty much summed up anything I had to say on techs. I'll just add that lately I've discovered that with the RAW image, applying a mask to the snow/clouds in LR and fiddling with the exposure or highlights in combination with the clarity slider may bring out the detail you seek. I haven't identified why/when but sometimes the exposure/clarity combination works and sometimes it's the highlights/clarity combo.

Also as Mike mentioned, for these shots your D7100/300 f4 would be happiest shooting at f8. For these particular shots your necessary DOF is relatively flat so you can get away with it. With that kit, unless you have specific reasons to manipulate DOF, using f8 as your default aperture will optimize sharpness and minimize CA.

[Brownbear]

Hi Mike,

Thank you for sharing and advising. I will try your suggestions. I forgot about bringing detail out in the snow because I was so focused on the mist (that didn't work because just a little tug on the curves tool made the sky wonky). I can see more detail in the snow in my other shots so that tells me it should work.

With respect to the 2nd image I will also give that a go. I photographed the scene without the trees but than the image is just the face of the mountain... ie; all rock. I didn't see the blue cast - thank you for letting me know.

Why f/16

Because I wanted to create a sense of mystery where one wishes to walk between the crevices. But also in my last set of mountains images photographed at f/8 - f/11 I didn't see the sharpness in the foreground trees that I wanted (even with focusing 1/3rd of the way in, mirror up, live view, tripod and remote release). I still don't have that loupe gadget you recommended and this particular morning was the first one that I learned that I couldn't see what was in the viewfinder (so I will buy one soon) so I couldn't check it out. Mostly for the crevices, but also because of my perception of the sharpness at f/16.

I like the misty look in the first one as is. I would probably crop a little at the top because I like tight crops. I'd like to see more detail in the shadow tones like in your second photo. Try to bring out more detail in the snow using the same techniques that have been discussed for bringing it out in whitewater and white feathers on a bird. The light may be so flat in some areas of the snow that there is no more detail but I would try before being convinced.

The composition of the second photo works better for me as a square aspect ratio. The trees at the bottom are especially effective in providing scale using that crop. I would raise the black point (doing so doesn't lose the detail that you brought out in the shadow tones) and correct the slight blue cast.

Why were you shooting at f/16 when your lens is probably sharper at f/8 or f/11?

[Brownbear]

Hi Dan,

Thank you for the detailed analysis and critique. Yes, the mist was constantly changing and it was a beautiful sight. Because I knew I couldn't get up there by sunrise I postponed visiting this place to the day after a heavy rain (to wash the haze away) with light clouds for interest. And my mist was there!

I have the 2nd image with and without the trees because I found it hard to frame, so I will take a look later today and see if one of the others works better. The post processing tips are appreciated. I will give it a try along with Mike's.

With respect to the aperture choice it was because of the mysterious crevices but also because my last mountain shots at a f/8 were not as sharp in the foreground. Even though I know it should be f/8 to f/11 for sharpness (and I can see this with other images) I'm not truly convinced when it comes to mountain images with trees in the foreground. On my next try I will try it again. And on closer look at the mountain crevice face image I can see CA. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Thank you Dan!

Hi, Christina. As with the birds, your landscapes are much improved. I like the tight shots of the mountains focusing on detailed aspects of them rather than the broad vistas. I really like that first shot. I'll bet as you stood there the mist was continuously changing. On the second, as Mike mentioned the trees at bottom do give a sense of scale to the image. In such cases including or excluding them should be a conscious decision based on what you are trying to achieve and whether they support your intent. As currently composed it does look a bit random, however. Either a bit more trees or none might have worked better.

Mike pretty much summed up anything I had to say on techs. I'll just add that lately I've discovered that with the RAW image, applying a mask to the snow/clouds in LR and fiddling with the exposure or highlights in combination with the clarity slider may bring out the detail you seek. I haven't identified why/when but sometimes the exposure/clarity combination works and sometimes it's the highlights/clarity combo.

Also as Mike mentioned, for these shots your D7100/300 f4 would be happiest shooting at f8. For these particular shots your necessary DOF is relatively flat so you can get away with it. With that kit, unless you have specific reasons to manipulate DOF, using f8 as your default aperture will optimize sharpness and minimize CA.

[Brownbear]

Thank you John. Indeed shapes mimicking the peaks.

Nicely done, I don't think the trees are cause for dropping the image, think of them as repeated shapes of the above peaks.

[FrankMi]

Hi Christina, lovely captures but just a bit flat. In the first, I like the way the eye is drawn up into the mist and back. The row of trees between the snow cover looks like a pathway to heaven.

As Mike pointed out, raising the Black Point in both images would help. I opened both images in Adobe Camera Raw and can see a definite gap in the histogram between the left side edge and the start of the pixels. Raising the Black Point from 0 to 5 (or 6) improves the look of the scene without turning on the warning indicator in ACR. The resulting difference is subtle but effective. It also helps improve the look of the mist by changing it's impact even though the mist isn't touched at all by raising the Black Point.

[Brownbear]

Hi Frank,


Thank you. Truly appreciated.

I will try that just that during my edits later today. I lowered the black point because it lightened up the mountain face, so I will try shadows or exposure instead.

Hi Christina, lovely captures but just a bit flat. In the first, I like the way the eye is drawn up into the mist and back. The row of trees between the snow cover looks like a pathway to heaven.

As Mike pointed out, raising the Black Point in both images would help. I opened both images in Adobe Camera Raw and can see a definite gap in the histogram between the left side edge and the start of the pixels. Raising the Black Point from 0 to 5 (or 6) improves the look of the scene without turning on the warning indicator in ACR. The resulting difference is subtle but effective. It also helps improve the look of the mist by changing it's impact even though the mist isn't touched at all by raising the Black Point.

[Mike Buckley]

I lowered the black point because it lightened up the mountain face, so I will try shadows or exposure instead.

A technique I often use is to get those details just as I want them. I then open up a new edit step, often after I have made all of my adjustments to an image, that begins with a new Level tool to raise the black point. That goes against the traditional wisdom of only adjusting the black point at the very beginning of the workflow, but it has always worked for me.

We've discussed recently always keeping your eye on the histogram. Not all images look their best when displaying true blacks, but it might help to try displaying them before determining it's best not to. So, when your histogram indicates the lack of true blacks, try creating them and decide what works best.

[NorthernFocus]

...With respect to the aperture choice it was because of the mysterious crevices but also because my last mountain shots at a f/8 were not as sharp in the foreground...

It's all about DOF, Christina. These two shots are relatively flat so not much DOF needed. If the FG was closer in the other shots that you mentioned, then yes, smaller aperture may be needed. Probably not something you need to worry about yet. Shooting at f16 is safer and we're talking about minute differences anyway. But for future reference playing around a bit with the online DOF calculator can be enlightening.

[Mike Buckley]

my last mountain shots at a f/8 were not as sharp in the foreground. Even though I know it should be f/8 to f/11 for sharpness (and I can see this with other images) I'm not truly convinced when it comes to mountain images with trees in the foreground.

Assuming you're using your 300mm lens in both situations, it depends on how close you are to the foreground items and how close they are to the items farther away that you want to keep in focus. Dan and I have the experience that you will also come by to know simply by looking at these images that you would have been fine to shoot at f/8. Even so, there is no reason that you couldn't have shot at f/8, f/11 and f/16 if you were concerned about depth of field. You could have determined which aperture worked best once you were at home at your computer. Better yet, taking those two extra shots takes less time when time is important in rapidly changing light than checking those details out in a magnified display of your camera's LCD.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Christina .All I want to say is that, I really like the composition in #1 and if you have the opportunity to download a DOF Calculator to your mobile phone , it really helps. I'm sure the images will look even nicer after your edits

[Brownbear]

Thank you Mike, Dan and Binnur.

Mike and Dan, I am most appreciative of the extra tips for photographing this scene. I sure hope this will get easier with more experience. Right now just thinking about the composition is overwhelming. I think I was about 4 kilometers away. When I enter those numbers in the DOF Calculator for a 300 mm lens the results state that my focus is at infinity and my sharpest point is focal point is 448 meters. I think I can get within a kilometer of these peaks which means that my sharpest point is 332 meters in front. I understand that I should focus on these points but truly it seems like a hard thing to guess, and at this point in time I'm not certain that I get it.

Following are my edits using the everyone's guidelines. I was able to bring out the detail in the snow, lower the black point etc using curves but I ran into troubles with the sky and mist even though I applied these edits selectively. However, I've learned a lot about post processing these types of images, and I do like the the misty peaks shots so I will eventually figure out how to do it well.

1st Edit





2nd Edit




The images of this scene that I took without the trees and with more trees just didn't work out. Without the trees there was no interesting foreground, and with plenty of trees the foreground looks messy.


A BIG thank you to everyone. I'm looking forward to visiting this place again for another try.

[Brownbear]

Hi Binnur,

Thank you. I truly appreciate your ongoing encouragement.

I'm one of those people who don't have a mobile phone simply because I figure any calls can wait until I am at home. However I can see the appeal of all those technical apps and it would come in handy if I was lost on the trails, so perhaps one day I will give in and buy one.

Hi Christina .All I want to say is that, I really like the composition in #1 and if you have the opportunity to download a DOF Calculator to your mobile phone , it really helps. I'm sure the images will look even nicer after your edits

[ajohnw]

Those are pretty good Christina.

On your focusing try the post I made in this thread

Depth of field 2/3 behind and 1/3 in front???

It might need a couple of clues. The aperture calculation is working out the effective size of the glass So 300mm / 16 = around 18mm. So say you focus on the mountain. At 0.9 of the distance the resolution would be 1.8mm ie 18mm time 0.1 off the chart. At 1/2 or 0.5 of the distance the resolution will be 0.5 x 18mm or 9mm. The resolution where the lens is focused is noted as 0 in the chart, in other words as good as it can be.

Say you focused at 1/2 the distance - if you could see it in the view with a 300mm lens. The resolution would be 0 there and 0.5 x 18 = 9mm maximum either side if this. One 1/2 would be down by your feet and the other 1/2 would be the detail in the mountain.

For landscapes the link I posted advocates always focusing at infinity ( the far distance in other words) and choosing and aperture based on the size of foreground detail. Easier to get you head round with a wide angle lens. Say there is some 6mm gravel in the foreground and its a 10mm lens. A 10mm lens must have an aperture smaller than 10mm/6mm = F1.6 to just resolve that. To resolve it sharply a factor of 5 seems to be appropriate so the calculation is 10/1.2 = F8.3 so you could use F9 and all detail down to that level would be resolved in the scene from your feet to the horizon.

The odd thing about the last example is that no camera is going to resolve 1.2 mm at some km but that doesn't matter. It will be as sharp as it can be. If you focused 1/2 way 10/1.2 would become 10/2.4 so an aperture of F4.1 could be used, say F5.6.

What this method gives is the sharpest possible result based round how well the foreground needs to be resolved. If it was grass for instance 3mm wide and the resolution was set up to be 3mm it would be recognisable as grass. On something like grass a resolution of 1mm should be ok.

Bill points out some interesting factors relating framing to DOF in the same thread as well. He also uses that for other things by measuring how many Bills are needed to size it and modifies dof to suit. He hasn't explained how to do that and I haven't worked it out either.

John
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[NorthernFocus]

Christina, the first image is improved but the second one is an example of how improved PP and recomposing it via crop made it a totally different and dramatically improved image. Nice job.

[Mike Buckley]

I think I was about 4 kilometers away. When I enter those numbers in the DOF Calculator for a 300 mm lens the results state that my focus is at infinity and my sharpest point is focal point is 448 meters. I think I can get within a kilometer of these peaks which means that my sharpest point is 332 meters in front. I understand that I should focus on these points but truly it seems like a hard thing to guess, and at this point in time I'm not certain that I get it.

It's impossible to reliably guess that accurately, so don't bother trying. As an example, no reasonable evaluation of a photo will ever be able to discern the difference between focusing on two points that are 100 meters apart in that situation.

The part that you're apparently not getting is that in a situation such as this, you should always ballpark ideal shooting parameters with no need to be precisely accurate. As one example, always use a middle aperture of any lens for best results unless there is a compelling reason not to do so. As another example, when shooting landscapes such as these, focus approximately one-third of the way and don't worry about how accurate that is; if the resulting scene is entirely, sharply in focus, that's the only thing that matters.

I've never used a depth-of-field chart or made any calculations. It's easy to get hung up on the math and forget that you're making a photo to be viewed at a reasonable distance relative to the size of the image.