Arches National Park, Utah

[nathanbarlow]

Hi guys,
could I get some critique on the below. Realise it is a bit OOF, but was using a m42 manual wideangle 18-24mm lens, and focusing with the scale, since I dont have a splitprism viewfinder yet. Also it was shot at f/4 because I havent modified the auto aperture to be jammed to manual aperture. Was focused at the sweet spot for this lens which is 1.2m (hence the OOF lol)

[IMG][/IMG]

ISO 100
shutter 1/1500
aperture f/4
-1EV
no flash

[windrider86]

For me, it's too dark and parts of the rocks seem a bit soft. Probbaly from shooting at f.4

[sk66]

I might have gone for higher contrast and cut some of the left side (maybe right side too)...
But as you know the real problem is the focus.....it's very hard to get past that.

[EOBeav]

Also, these shots really work best during the golden hours right at sunrise or at sunset. As it is, you're dealing with some pretty harsh shadows caused by the direct sunlight. Get up early next time and bring a tripod along!

[nathanbarlow]

thanks for all the feedback. I personally like the harsh shadows,as I feel it really adds to the three dimensional aspect of the rock, but each to his own. We arrived at Arches around 10am and left about 1pm, so golden hours was a no-go (had to be pressing onto denver for the next day).

As many have said, the OOF and shallow DOF are very hard to get past.

I really need to modify the lens so it is a "manual" aperture (ie the aperture is always set to the value selected on the ring) but have only found destructive methods to do that so far (not keen, since it is a (for its age) pristine lens). Once that is sorted and I have a splitprism viewfinder for my body, it should be easy as pie to get good focus. Just a case of getting all that researched/organised and done haha.

Any critique on other aspects (other than DoF and OOF) would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Nathan

[Technical Tim]

i think the issue you have is trying to shoot a landscape with such a wide aperture means you are not getting the whole image in focus i've just read a really good book called Capturing the Light by Peter Watson - may be worth a read if you can get a copy