Photo a Day: Day 74

I had some computer issues last night and despite my persistence, the computer simply refused to work long enough to post a photo.  So, I'm going to catch up tonight.

While heading back from Bryce Canyon to Boulder for dinner on Friday evening, we came to a view stop on the road right as the sun set and saw this:

 

55mm, 3 seconds, f/16, ISO 200.  I learned that a landscape shot like this does not work well with a wide angle because I wanted to use the foreground to create some interest and lead the eye to the sunlit mesa in the background.  With a wide angle, the mesa becomes so small in the frame that it loses it's impact.  I think the upshot is that camera position is probably more important at getting the right balance of foreground and background into a shot like this than using a wide-angle to "get more stuff" into the frame.

Here is the wide-angle version for comparison:

 

I like what wide-angle does for the foreground but you can see that the mesa sort of gets lost in the background.  Which do you prefer, dear reader?

Comments

[emptyness]

DUH, the non wide angle one. So much more interesting and beautiful.

[r-dean]

i agree. at 55mm, there's a nicer balance.
do you do all your landscape shots with tripod?
I gotta get one of those ;-)

[alice]

I like the first one best too :)