Tag: Tioga Pass

“Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.” William Wordsworth, originally uploaded by dmzajac2004-.

Copyright © 2010 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

This is just one of many stops we made along the way to the Eastern Sierras with 2 friends to spend the week-end shooting Fall Color with Bill Wight and Mountain High Workshops. We were able to cross the mountains via Tioga Pass. We had feared the Pass would be closed due to a 2 day rain/snow storm that has passed through the area only days before. Fortunately the sun came out and the roads weren’t snowed under preventing a crossing.
This is a view of Lembert Dome, and the snow capped mountain peaks behind it. This dome is located in Tuolumne Meadows.
I was last here in June of this year and this whole meadow was covered in snow then.

I have lost some of the detail in the snow capped mountains. I shot two frames this was the -0- or middle frame. I suppose I should have taken another shot 1 stop under also then blended the two frames in post processing. However, I’m weak in Photoshop skills. I think in the future I will spot meter the snow capped mountains and work around that chimping and adjusting my EV compensation until I get better detail all over. It’s more satisfying for me to do that in the field than to try and do it in Photoshop later merging, blending, layering, masks and painting…bleh!!

This is the photo I’m happiest with for this stop. No more tweaking or worrying about those blown out mountains caps. I do love the detail in the tree trunks, and light filtering through this grove, the shadows on the trunks and in the mulch below came out well, and the golden meadow looks great with the sky. Overall I think I did a good job of capturing the dynamic range in this one frame.

PP- Recovery, vibrance, clarity, resized, levels and tried curves but that didn’t do anything good to the mountains snow caps.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 17-35mm @ 19mm, f9, 1/100s, ISO 200