Great sand dunes national park

[eswebster]

Below are some images from a recent trip out to GSDNP. Had the entire park to myself and after the sun went down and the best of the light was gone i was able to lay on my back in the sand and enjoy the stars.... excellent trip. One I probably wouldn't have chosen to enjoy if not for photography.

All feedback is welcome. Also interested in which you like the best.

 

[nsinnott]

I like #2 the best. Still new to photography and critiquing, would #2 look better if you cropped out the lens flare on the left side of the image?

 

[ATVrider43]

^^^ I second that

 

[eswebster]

Shooting a tokina 16-28 and it flares like crazy gets a bit annoying. Thanks for the CC. I think some of them would benefit from being a bit brighter and a touch more saturation. But I dont like touching up the images too much.

 

[Awiserbud]

deffinatly #2 i'm not sure about the lens flare, part of me accepts it as being normal for a wide angle shooting into the sun, It doesn't look totally out of place, the flare to the right of the sun is more distracting, that could easily be corrected in PS.

 

[ATVrider43]

Yeah, idk I like the flare because its natural and not faked...ya no?

 

[Patrice]

Shooting a tokina 16-28 and it flares like crazy gets a bit annoying. Thanks for the CC. I think some of them would benefit from being a bit brighter and a touch more saturation. But I dont like touching up the images too much.

Thanks for posting these. I'm thinking of getting that lens so nice to see another TPF member using one.

 

[eswebster]

I just started using photoshop, how do you correct for flare?

 

[ATVrider43]

I just started using photoshop, how do you correct for flare?

You could blend it, fill it, or just crop it, I'd just crop it out

 

[Awiserbud]

you cant really correct for lens flare, you can correct for barrel distortion...flares like the ones to the right of the sun can be masked out using layers or replaced using the clone stamp tool. covering the flare on the left will be more tricky as there is more detail to replace.

 

[eswebster]

I'll have to try out the clone stamp tool. So much to learn.

 

[Mully]

You could crop the image and take care of the problem ...I would crop the left side and get rid of some of the sky to make it more interesting.

 

[Trblmkr]

I agree with the cropping. You could do the cloning, but it would take a very fine hand and a decent amount of time to get it to blend just right to where it's no apparent you removed something.

 

[eswebster]

Patrice, its a great lens. I was impressed at how sharp it was when I first used it. Came from a canon 24-105L and it was a noticeable difference. I havent been bothered by the no filter issue yet, I have been bracketing photos to act as the GND. They have options if you are dead set on filters that will add another $350 to the all in cost. With all that said, I would buy again.

How about these, better? Just some cropping done, little saturation on the second.

 

[Trblmkr]

Very nice... much better on the cropped IMO.
#2, yeah the bumping up the saturation levels helped that picture out big time. Much more interesting to the eye.