This was taken a few days ago in the Columbia River Gorge – Starvation Creek Falls (Oregon side) from Dog Mountain Spine (Washington side).
I know it’s noisy. This is about 50% crop. In retrospect I should have switched to a vertical format, zoomed in more, and used a graduated ND filter (had one with me), but given the conditions (cold, very windy, exposed location) it was hard to just frame and focus and I just lacked the grit to do it right.
The sun burning through was so bright that I had to underexpose the lower portion of the image in order to avoid clipping the highlights in the upper portion. Then, when I opened up the lower portion of the raw image I amplified the noise present there.
I’m concerned about the highlighting on the treetops at the very bottom of the image (more evident when printed) – do viewers find that distracting? Any other critical comments? Thank you for your time.