Lake Marian, NZ (C & C)

Glowing

Hi there,

These are a couple of my shots from Lake Marian in New Zealand. I've never seen a more spectacular sight especially after a 2 hour hike up through a deserted forest on soft, fresh snow!

Anyway, I always find shots like these difficult, especially when trying to get the metering right. Is there any post processing stuff you'd recommend for either of these?

Thanks a million!

nilhg

I prefer the first, the other one has too much of the vista cut off on the right.

The thing I find strange about both is the lack of any reflection or colour in the lake. If the sky wasn't blue it would be easy to assume that they are B/W.

magicbastarder

the lake could be frozen over, hence the lack of reflection.

kenmc

Actually, I think the lake is in shadow from the huge peak on the right hand side ..... would that prevent a reflection? You can see a slight reflection in the second pic though.

Scoual

hi there,
For the lake reflection, what if it was pretty windy and the water was too disturbed to be reflecting anything? Let s do some bets and wait for glowing to explain what the real reason was !:D

I don t think there s any metering prob here Glowing, the snow is as white as it should be and it s just the right light...
I love the 1st one and it really makes me want to go there.. the sky is perfect, just as if you directed the clouds, and the way the sun falls on the mountains gives an idea of the heights of the mountains... really nice. It s a shame that the lake didn t want to give you its best appearance... it looks pretty"dead" (colorless and textureless) and doesnt do its purpose of reflecting like nilhg said.
I m not too crazy about the composition of the second shot although the metering is right. I dont know... i guess it s the foreground that is too important and not particularly interesting compared to the background which is stunning and i would have liked to see it more. For this kind of panoramic scenery, i wouldn t shot in portrait, i guess it s what i don t like about.

Thank you for sharing this to us, made me travel a bit !

Glowing

Good morning! Thanks for all the comments.

I've no idea why there's no reflection, I didn't really notice it up until now! It wasn't windy I don't think, I'd say it's just in a shadow perhaps .....

P.S You should go there!!

Benster

Your best bet for capturing snow scenes is to over-expose it a bit, as the camera usually tries to tone down the brightness to a grey-ish level, which isn't what you want for snow obviously. Over-expose by a stop or two will make the pics that bit more punchy.

I'd say you felt pretty small looking at such serious mountains!

B.