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Sunset Lit Tree and Fogbank

Posted by
Don Smith (California, United States) on 24 September 2008 in Landscape & Rural.

While awaiting a sunset shot, my friend and colleague Nick Lust and I hiked a trail just to see if there were any potential images to be made. We spotted this scene where a low setting sun illuminated this oak tree near the summit of Fremont Peak State Park overlooking the Monterey Bay, California. Fog poured in over the Pacific Ocean lending an aire of mystery to the image. I was able to isolate and compress the tree and the fog bank by using a 100mm-400mm telephoto lens at 285mm. The setting sun provided the warmth to the shot. I used a 3-stop Singh-Ray split neutral density filter to balance the sky and the hills. Unfortunately a single frame did not reveal the luminance of the tree as I had remembered - it was part of what drew me to photograph the scene. To bring the detail and color out of the tree, I ended up converting four RAW images: -1, 0, +1 and +2 and combining the four converted TIFFS in Photomatix 3.0 software using the Exposure Blending option. I darkened the corners of the image and the fog bank by using Nik Veviza software. To see more of my images, please visit my website at http://www.donsmithphotography.com

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III 1/5 second F/22.0 ISO 200 285 mm

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