12/07/13 Featured Arkansas Photography–Fall scene from Mt. Nebo Arkansas

Fall Scene on the road to Mt. Nebo–Click on image for a larger view

Taken with a Nikon D800, 14-24 lens, F 5.6, iso 200 single exposure.  In my travels throughout Arkansas, I had only been to Mt. Nebo on one occasion and on that day it was raining.  Mt. Nebo is a large mass formation that starts a chain of mountains that terminates in Mt. Magazine.  Mt. Magazine is the tallest spot in Arkansas at over 2700 feet tall, Mt. Nebo is around 1200 feet tall, which is surprising when you see it since it appears to be much taller.  Thanks to Chris Kennedy, a photographer based in Russellville, I was able to get a much better tour of Mt Nebo this fall.  Mt Nebo has some excellent photographic locations and is great place to travel for a sunrise as it overlooks the entire Arkansas River Valley from Russellville to Petit Jean Mountain.

This shot was taken in the mid afternoon as is some of the best fall color I was able to capture this year.  I had spotted this area on our first trip but the light was not correct.  When I made a 2nd trip to Mt. Nebo, I was able to line up this shot perfectly.  The light was blending in from the right hand side of the frame and the illumination of the left side of the road was near perfect.

This photograph is another example of the amazing dynamic range of the Nikon D800.   I had left my truck about 1/2 up the road and just started walking along the road.  I did not have a tripod and there was a bit of wind blowing.  I also had a situation where the lighting was an extreme range, bright on the left side and very dark on the right.  I also have to be aware of the center of the shot since I did not want to blow out the sky in the center which had the most light.  I picked iso 200, and exposed for the center of the frame.  I was using a CL-PL to help pull out more of the colors of the fall trees and it added about -1.5 stops of exposure.

When working up the shot in post, I used Lightroom and was able to control the exposure in the center of the frame and pull up the extreme shadows on the right hand side.  In the past, with previous digital cameras, I would have had to make at least 2 separate exposures and thus would have needed a tripod.

This shot was taken along Hwy 155 which is the only road to the summit of Mt Nebo near the old bench road.