Taken yesterday locally at 16mm: the mono at f11, the colour at f22.
I lay on the ground in both cases to either bring in foreground detail or get rid of unwanted stuff at the horizon.
The mono tree is on Minchinhampton Common; the beeches are near Daneway...both near Stroud.
Contrast-masking a lo-contrast raw-conversion, then dodging/burning sky, ensured the sky looks more dramatic than it did at the time.
Just warmed up the foreground a bit here; it was late afternoon and the colour temperature was up:
Yes, the mono is my fave too really.
the first one in stunning, I love your treatment of the sky and the composition is just right.
Second one I am not so sure about, but I generally have trouble judging colors on this screen... so don't know.
The trees' tips look a bit pale to me.
Greetings!
Uli
The first one is the winner, I'd really like to see this printed in a very large format. It could be a bit darker and even more dramatic overall for my taste but that's probably just me and my lcd screen. Well done!
I like the colours and composition of the colour one (natch), but it's not as striking as the first.
I'd be inclined to do a little 'editing' on the tree in the mono composition. If you were to clone out the two thin trunks and the one branch that's reaching far out to the left I don't think too many people would miss it, and it would simplify the tree a little.
#1 a winner.
Really like the composition and the pp, well done!
noooo, I am opposed to cloning out the smaller trees! I love them as part of the whole, they are a repetition of the big tree's two trunks... (btw, how many trees are there?)
uli
I agree uli, leave my trees alone!

Cloning is something best left to the scientists.
I don't know about you folks, but I tend to think about final image output size at the taking stage: the mono tree would be OK at f5.6 if the output were just for web, and of the 2, the colour one has the real movement to it at f22 if enlarged, and is the better image in hard copy larger than 20 inches vertically.
The mono tree was deliberately converted at lowish contrast, as there's much pleasing detail in the trunks; I wanted to avoid the complete silhouette..but again who is to know when we do the web-sized versions?
On my wall at home is a 20x16 inch mono tree/landscape made up from 15 stitched and blended shots with a 50mm lens. The image was around 40 MP but it was no fun trying to dodge with 1500 pixel brushes.
uli...d'you know, I'm not sure! I think it's one hawthorn that has split into 2 at surface level.
That's odd....this the second "double tree" that I've photo'd in a week; must be God at work trying to tell me something...
![[Image: 2trees_cWEB.jpg]](http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/images/upload/2trees_cWEB.jpg)