Strange sunset in Norway tonight

I looked outside before starting a movie and had to grab the camera to scoot on over to a nearby lookout. These are the result. Shot about an hour ago (around 30 shots being used in each one). I used autostitch to put these together, straight off the camera. I wish I could have used a grad to help with the foreground. I think it was snow falling in the cold air, then evaporating as it got lower. The sun was peaking between layers of clouds and sending the light across the lake. It was too bright to shoot closer towards the sun. I was starting to get flares on the lens as well. C&C appreciated. The camera was manual focus / exposure, iso 200, f5.6 with the 24-105L on 350D.

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Nice. I like the first better though it looks a little soft. I found that Autostitch's main problem was that it softens images. Did you set quality to 100% and jog quality to 100?

The second it a bit too dark in the foreground.

How come the second is so much sharper?

Beautiful shots Scott. Great scenery there for sure.

Thanks for the comments. I increased the jpg quality, but forgot to change the scale on the first one. I've only used this a few times now, I really need to start learning all the adjustments. Here's a version I did with a 30% scale which is still quite large with that many images.

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Wow, that last one is really fine, sharp now. Looks even better. This image is an inspiration for me.

Much better!

Great images.

nice images..

Avi

I had a few minutes to play with photoshop today (while on break at work). I definitely like the trees having more highlights.

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Really lovely. The last one is verging on fakery though; the halos are too much. Further work on your mask and maybe a compromise between the two versions would be perfect.

Yeah I'm going to redo it. I literally had 5 minutes to do this. I plan to redo it this weekend when I have time. Today was more to see how it would turn out as I only had this size to work with.

I do like the second to last one but agree that the last one is starting to look a little fake. I love clouds and sunsets and this is the first time I have seen a shot like this very interesting atmosphere happening here. Thanks for letting us see them.

Neat pictures Scott. I like the soft glow the reflected light has on the landscape.

The phenomena of snow / rain evaporating before it hits the ground is called virga. It's one of the meteorological events my paragliding instructor told us to watch out for.

Dennis

Scott, good to see you on the site!

The pictures look great...good tradeoff to the cold weather and snow over there!

DennisU wrote in post #5943534
Neat pictures Scott. I like the soft glow the reflected light has on the landscape.

The phenomena of snow / rain evaporating before it hits the ground is called virga. It's one of the meteorological events my paragliding instructor told us to watch out for.

Dennis

Nice, I never heard of that before. I had one sail plane lesson / ride. That was near Palomar if I remember right.

Hey Moose,

Winters aren't any colder than Michigan. They're actually better as the snow doesn't melt / freeze each night, so the roads are normally pretty decent to drive on. The only thing is there's 2 more cold months here, with spring starting in May. Daylight lasts forever in the summer and isn't much less than Michigan in the winter. Post some Shootout pics once you have them for me will ya?