Jackson, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Badlands, Trip Photos

[Nacho]

Hi Folks:

Thought I'd post a few shots from my recent trip across the U.S. We came from Oregon to Maryland, making stops in Craters of the Moon (Idaho), National Elk Refuge (Jackson, Wyoming), Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Big Horn, Mount Rushmore, The Badlands, and so forth. I posted a red fox pic in the wildlife forum, and will post another one there of a Bison taken at Yellowstone. I think the processing is halfway done on these. I also have a few BW conversions coming. The laptop screen is troubling me - not calibrated, way too small, can't gauge the angle well enough... How do you folks who work on laptops primarily do it?

I used a D300 and D70, with primarily three lenses: 35-70mm 2.8D, Sigma 10-20mm, and at times an older Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G.

Jackson, Wyoming, National Elk Refuge: (blew the highlights, see top of cloud, but still like the image.)

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From Grand Teton National Park: the sky was just incredible

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At Yellowstone:

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Mount Rushmore, South Dakota:

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At the Badlands:

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At the Badlands:

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Wish I had been at the Badlands during sunset, or early morning, but... traveling with kids and with a timetable cuts a bit on the flexibility.

Thanks for looking. Any thoughts appreciated.

gassho,

Nacho :smile:

 

[JustinD]

That first shot is very nice

 

[camerapapi]

I looked at your beautiful pictures and some of them did not look right. I could understand why after reading your explanations.
The first one has an underexposed foreground and a very acceptable background except for the blown highlight. You cannot improve on the highlights but using curves you can bring the foreground into a more acceptable shot.
The last two pictures, for my taste, are slightly overexposed but nothing a little bit of burning-in could not improve. Try burning-in setting the control to shadows at 5% and you should see a significant improvement in those pictures.
Remember I said that the pictures were not to my taste and others could disagree with me. You need to calibrate your monitor.
Considering the drawbacks I believe you did pretty well.
William Rodriguez
Miami, Florida.

 

[scooptdoo]

I looked at your beautiful pictures and some of them did not look right. I could understand why after reading your explanations.
The first one has an underexposed foreground and a very acceptable background except for the blown highlight. You cannot improve on the highlights but using curves you can bring the foreground into a more acceptable shot.
The last two pictures, for my taste, are slightly overexposed but nothing a little bit of burning-in could not improve. Try burning-in setting the control to shadows at 5% and you should see a significant improvement in those pictures.
Remember I said that the pictures were not to my taste and others could disagree with me. You need to calibrate your monitor.
Considering the drawbacks I believe you did pretty well.
William Rodriguez
Miami, Florida.

good advice.blown highlites as in the clowd in picture one are glarring and a sure sign of bad post processing.the dear looked over worked or something also.but man what country.it gets no more beautiful any place else in the world as in the western united states.i envy you tripp.

 

[siinjen]

Nice series of photos:wink:

 

[Nancy Elwood]

Did you use a polirizer filter? You could apply polarizing effects with the grad tool in NX as Jason O'dell describes and it might make the images better. Also, could of used BKT under and over then do a HDR.

Nancy

 

[fdevyatkin]

Captures are good.
Might want to pop them with an S curve and perhaps adjust the WB?
Fred