06/18/18 Featured Photography–Clearing morning fog at Pinnacle Mountain
I have a great fondness for the valley of the Little Mamuelle River and Pinnacle mountain. On one side you have the river winding down to the Arkansas River and then across the mountain is Lake Mamuelle. The distinctive shape of Pinnacle makes many feel that Arkansas has a volcano, but no the top is really two separate peaks. Pinnacle is around 650 feet tall and on most mornings where there is fog, you will see the just the top of the mountain poking out. This day was unique since there was a large amount of fog over Lake Mamuelle, which was billowing up like a cloud bank. As the sun rose up, the sky was painted in a wonderful separation of pink to light blue and the sun hitting the face of the mountain just added to the scene.
I used my Phase One IQ3100 for this shot. I was using a tripod and the Phase One 75-150mm lens. However I still cropped into the shot at least by one third as I just wanted to have the mountain by itself. I used Capture One software to work up the raw file and then tweaked the final look and feel in Lightroom and Topaz.
Pinnacle is a great climb for those in good shape, you can climb it from either side from fully maintained trails.
written for www.photosofarkansas.com by Paul Caldwell. This article is copy write protected, please contact me for permission to reprint.
05/18/18 Featured Arkansas Photography–Foggy morning view of Pinnacle and the Maumelle Pinnacles
- At May 18, 2018
- By paul
- In Featured Arkansas Photography
- 0
Taken with a Nikon D810 and 70-200 lens @ 200mm
One of my most favorite spots to photograph Arkansas is from near my home, overlooking the Arkansas and Mamuelle River valleys. The center piece of this is Pinnacle Mountain, at around 600 feet tall. Many folks feel Arkansas has a volcano, but no it’s just very interesting shaped Pinnacle. The 4 Maumelle Pinnacles are laid out behind it in a chain and on a morning like this, barely stick up above the fog.
I love to catch sunsets from here, but really love the mornings where the fog has rolled up the entire valley, much like the fog in San Francisco. Behind Pinnacle is Lake Maumelle and the large clouds are from that body of water.
To take this image, as I always want to both Pinnacle and the Maumelle Pinnacles behind it, I used my Nikon D810 and 70-200 lens. I stayed in the horizontal position to take this and used 3 separate shots. Due to the fog, my normal stitching tool, Lightroom was not able to create the panorama. Instead I used ptgui and it made a great panorama. I used both Lightroom and ACR to work on the images, then added a tad of Topaz Clarity to finish off the shot.
Enjoy.
Written for photosofarkansas.com by Paul Caldwell, both article and image are covered by registered copy write protection.
02/23/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Night skies over Area 51 in Western Pulaski County Arkansas
Taken with a Canon 5D MKII with a 16-35mm lens @ F4.5 for approximately 4o minutes. Area 51, in Little Rock, not out in the desert. Yes, Arkansas has it’s are 51! It’s a great spot to view Pinnacle mountain as there is big field in front of the mountain and the area 51 sign just adds to the effect of the shot. This is a harder spot to work than one might think as the constant stream of cars coming by. The headlights can really blow out a stacked exposure and to get this shot I had to work in the foreground from several different image since the lights were totally blowing out the image. I liked the way the sky came out, with a amber color towards the horizon and then a nice fade into a deep blue. I was barely able to catch the north star in the upper left corner. I was working against a very bright moon but I was able to finally get into a spot where I could use the large tree on the right to block most of the moonlight. I love this spot and go out to it many time during the year.