htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

We spent a few days in the Sierra foothills, mostly poking around old gold towns. Not far from Columbia there's a place called Natural Bridges.

I went early in the morning, which was a good thing. I had the place to myself until the very end, when a family showed up. On the way back up to the car, I passed group after group heading down. It must have been quite the convention down there.

It's really more like a shallow cave, but in the back there's a tunnel. You can see daylight at the far end, and possibly there are more beyond since the name is plural. I didn't go into the tunnel because a) it would require wading through waist-deep (cold) water, and b) water sheeted down from the ceiling at the tunnel entrance and I couldn't see how to keep my camera dry.

This is a multi-exposure pan from inside the cave. Each frame of the pan is also three exposures in order to capture the dynamic range. I have never tried this before, and while I'm pleased with the results, I can also see several things I could have done better. If I'm ever there again, I might be able to do better.

(Download)

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Unless you point out the weaknesses you see very few, if any will find them.

Great work.

Rich1939 Loc: Pike County Penna.

That is a pretty darn good result for what you were trying to do! Did you use a tripod?

I STOP TO SHOOT Loc: By the No. CA Sea

htbrown: What a beautiful shot and the download is important to see all the great details. Thank you for sharing...

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Wonderful result! I see no weaknesses.

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

I did use a tripod. It was dark enough in there that a hand-held shot would have required boosting the ISO beyond what my little camera can do gracefully.

The photo is a composite of 33 shots (eleven triplets). I understand that LR CC has some cool tools for combining these kinds of things, but I have LR5 and PS6. My biggest disappointment in how it came out is the rocks in the daylight in the center of the picture are blocked. I used PS's HDR tool to combine the triplets, and if I understood how to use it better, perhaps that could have been avoided. Or I could use luminosity masks, but the time required to do that on the eleven triplets and get the balance right between all of them is daunting.

Thank you and everyone for the kind comments.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

The new LR tool to produce a pano is ridiculously easy.

htbrown Loc: San Francisco Bay Area

Making the pano in PS6 was easy too. What I'm less happy with was the HDR output from each triplet. I understand the latest LR has a much better HDR module than the one in PS6. When I'm once again gainfully employed, I may bite the bullet and subscribe. Right now, I'm not buying/subscribing to any new software...

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

The HDR process is also very easy.