Albuquerque or Mars?

[xysmas]

What do you all think?

This is actually what the sky looked like this evening - this wonderful purple light bathed over everything in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.

[wulf]

Fantastic shot. Have you done any post processing (what?) or is this straight off the camera (what settings?)?

Wulf

[jiminyClickit]

xysmas,

That's a testament to you and Nikon as a team, a memorable sight for sure.

[Penny]

What a superb shot! I'm really envious of your skill and the opportunity!!

[angeleyes216]

I wish there was scenery like that around here in Indiana. That is so beautiful. love it!

[clockdoc]

One of the most striking sunset shots I have seen in a long time. Thanks for sharing this with us.

[JJthethird]

No critique for such a beautiful shot. Awesome.

John.

[xysmas]

Thank you all for the kind comments.

Originally Posted by wulf

Fantastic shot. Have you done any post processing (what?) or is this straight off the camera (what settings?)?

Wulf

This was shot raw (1/200, 3.5, 18mm) and needed a bit of work to really recreate the true colors of the evening. I used lightroom to hit the right color temp (daylight-ish) and in Photoshop dodged the rock you see on the right to add some scenery to the image. Before the dodging the rock was only a silhouette and the image was not as complete as it is now.

That was done via several adjustment layers of exposure and Levels and a nice mask on each of them.

Back into lightroom, a little sharpening was done and a touch of brightness for the foreground again and voila!

[wulf]

I thought you must have done a bit of work (and nothing wrong with that - the artist has a duty to present what they saw, not what the mechanics of the camera captured ). The changes are more obvious now you have mentioned them - arguably, you might have gone a bit too far with that rock as the shadows are much lighter there than elsewhere.

However, while you could perhaps make some different choices in the processing, it is still a stunning shot.

Wulf