Grand Canyon North Rim Sunrise

[BompaGene]

I'm just getting back into photography after a long absence. Got my first DSLR and am having to relearn everything!!
This was shot about 15 min after sunrise, Canon T3i, 18-55 kit lens, no filter. The haze is smoke from controled burns in the nearby forrest. The Utah Juniper branch seemed to be a good frame.
Please let me know bad as well as good points!
Feel free to reprocess!
Gene

[milosh]

Hello and welcome!

That's a pretty nice photo you've got there!

I have a couple of advices, you'll probably get some more from others. The first is about composition: I like the fact that you tried to frame the canyon using the tree, but the placement of branches is not ideal. Right now, when looking at it, both the tree and the canyon have almost the same visual mass, which takes away the importance of the canyon. If you zoomed in, you could have included less of the tree. This can be improved by cropping, although you will loose pixels.

Another thing is your camera settings, you used 1/400 and f4.5. You should always aim to use smaller apertures because of image quality (provided other shooting conditions allow you). And not only because of the IQ, but you would also have larger depth of field.

I have nothing to add about the colours and processing, you were treated with beautiful light which created these nice colours, it's beautiful.

I cropped it and rotated it to the left for 0.2 degrees .

[Matthias099]

This is a great shot! However I agree that the branch is a little too prominent for me. I would have liked to see more of the sky. But the branch is almost touching the canyon on the opposite side.

Like the pretty fall colors though. You took it at just the right moment.

[Krusty79]

In addition to the previous comments, I'm going to add that I would like to be able to see down into the canyon some more than the current composition shows. It's still a pretty good shot, though.

[BompaGene]

Thank you Krusty!
I'm still working on proper camera settings, so any help is NEEDED! I'm gonna have to go back (happily). That was about the best position I could get (and still use a tripod) without falling into the canyon!! Made it hard to look down into the canyon which was still quite dark at that time.
The crop is better.
Gene

[Krusty79]

You're welcome. 99% of the shots I see of the Grand Canyon are taken from the rim. I would suggest hiking down into the canyon a ways and take some shots from down there for a different perspective. You might be able to get some shots with people on the mule rides or using the trail as a leading line into the image.

The last time I was there, my 35mm SLR died, so I didn't have any shots to document the trip.

[EOBeav]

I like your image, especially your decision to shoot at this time of the day.

Just for fun, I did a quick mono treatment by desaturating to the red channel and bumping the contrast just a bit. Hope you like. It would be fun to have the original RAW file to process in Lightroom and then finish off in Silver Efex Pro, but I think you get the idea here.

Edit: I found the EXIF data on your Flickr page:

Camera Canon EOS REBEL T3i
Exposure 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture f/4.5
Focal Length 25 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias -1 EV

Generally speaking, landscapes work best at the f/11 to f/16 range. I do like your -1 EV exposure compensation, though.

[BompaGene]

Hadn't though in black and white, but I like it.
F stop and shutter speed was set by the camera while using Landscape Mode. Lots to relearn!
Thanks