Mountain Photography

I enjoy the mountains because the beautiful landscape is a wonder gift to us from the Lord.  Southern Arizona is not the best place to find the mountains that are extremely high and full of a rich forest.  The best way to really see the mountains is on hiking trails and the back roads because I can get to much better scenery and formations.

Capturing the images

When out there looking for landscapes to photograph, I try to pick idea conditions in the sky, the lighting, and other factors.   I will almost always use my full frame camera and the Canon 24-70 F/2.8 ii is the favorite.   The canon 100-400 F/4-5.6 ii telephoto makes some very nice landscapes in the desert depending how the landscape is shaped.  Although there is usually enough light I still prefer a tripod when framing a shot.  Even when hiking I carry a small one in case it is needed.

Post Processing

I use Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop to do my post processing.   I spend most of the time in Lightroom Classic and move to Photoshop as needed.  There are a few plugins I used to help in Photoshop which include Luminar 4 and Noiseware.    I always use what is called a smart object in Photoshop before using filters so I can use a mask to only allow what was needed by the filter.  I find that plugins do more than what is needed and the smart object controls that.