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This photograph was taken near Estes Park, Colorado in Rocky Mountain National Park. In many ways this is a typical western USA landscape that everyone takes when they visit a place like this, but a few things about were intended to be different. The first is I used a high quality carbon fiber tripod to maximize the stability of the camera, resulting in a sharper photograph than most people were getting who were standing around me. I was also using an SLR camera, which has a sensor that is much larger than in a point and shoot camera, giving me lots more detail than is possible with a point-and-shoot camera. All SLR cameras outperform all point-and-shoot cameras in image quality. The circle was created using a lens hood designed for a much longer lens which when placed on this lens cuts off all four corners. I could see this effect while looking at the scene before I actually took the photograph. In the finished photograph there are often slightly gray areas in the black outer area. These were retouched to produce an even black border using the Brush tool in Photoshop.

text and photograph ©2010 Paul Light all rights reserved