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Sunset at Dead Horse Point

Posted by
Don Smith (California, United States) on 27 November 2008 in Landscape & Rural.

I have returned from a week of shooting in Utah with four other photographers. It's funny that I start with this image, shot along the rim of Dead Horse Point State Park, as my first post as this was the one location we all agreed where none of us made a memorable image. I was really struggling with the light as the sun was much farther south than we anticipated thus throwing unmanageable shadows across the canyon and the Colorado River which goosenecked below. I held a slim amount of hope that at the precise minute of sunset, I could salvage an image with the help of Photomatix Pro HDR software. I waited until the sun kissed the horizon, then fired off a bracket of 9 frames. My first attempt yielded too much flare, thus I held a 10" x 10" piece of photo black to the right of my lens to help shield it and made one more attempt. This time the flare was nonexistent. I picked six images and let Photomatix work its magic. With the help of Nik Viveza and Photoshop CS3, I finished out the image. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of this amazing software, please visit their website at Photomatix Pro and use my code: donsmithphotography at checkout for a 15% discount. If you would like to see more of my images and read a tutorial on Photomatix, please visit my website at Don Smith Photography.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III 1/3 second F/16.0 ISO 200 35 mm

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