I decided to take my one day off today to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park. It is only about 30 minutes from me, so I visit there often to hike, camp, take pics and ride my motorcycles.

This park is a MUST SEE for anyone who visits the area. These few photos are just a very small sample of the views and vistas that this great park offers.

Today I only ventured on the main roads, only hiking short distances off the various pullouts and trail heads in the Beaver Meadows, Moraine Park and Lawn Lake areas. There are numerous hiking trails throughout the park that offer even better scenery and wildlife opportunities (a few hundred miles worth). Then there is the backcountry that takes a couple of day of camping to get into.

Well enough blather, on with the photos!

On most of these pictures, I used the kit DAL 18-55mm lens. I only used the Sigma 75-200 lens for the rutting elk shots.

These pics look a lot better full size, but I don't have any photo hosting area that lets me upload them full size. Also, it was pretty overcast most of the day so alot of the pictures are not as good as the could have been.

These first three are in the Moraine Park area







Beaver Meadows Area. You can see an elk herd in this picture and the one above.



This one is heading over to the Lawn Lake trailhead







This is a small portion of Alluvial Falls, a very short (~1/10 mile) hike from the trailhead. This whole are was carved out in a few minutes when the earthen dam broke at Lawn Lake, about 8 miles upstream back in the early '80s. There was a huge flood that killed a few campers and washed out parts of Estes Park.





When heading out of the park, I came upon a herd of about 100 elk. They were mostly cows with a few juvenile bull elk in this herd. The larger bull elk could be heard bugling throughout the area. I got a few shots of the juvenile elk sparing. These were shot with my pawn shop Sigma 75-200mm at about 150mm. The elk were about 100 feet in front of me.







Well, that's it for now. If you ever have the chance, be sure to drop by RMNP, I'm sure you won't be disappointed .

[Colorado CJ]

I was looking at my camera (a Kx) and it seems like the stock settings sets the focus a little soft. So, I'm going to reprocess the pictures once again and sharpen them up a little. I reprocessed one of the elk shots and it looks much better than the ones I've posted.

I'll try to get the new shots up in a few minutes. I'll make another post notifying when I do.

Here's the original elk shot



And here is the sharpened shot. I'm not sure why pentax has the setting to soften the picture as standard, I'll definitely be adjusting that differently in the camera.

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Last edited by Colorado CJ; 11-02-2010 at 08:58 PM.

[mKlus]

Great photos!

[Colorado CJ]

I just replaced the pictures with the reprocessed pics. I had my in camera sharpness settings to soft, which took away some detail. I sharpened them up a little in Photoshop. They look much better to me, more 3D and not so soft.

Also, I was looking through the EXIF data and the first two shots were taken with my Pentax A 50mm F2 lens, not the kit lens.

[jva59]

Colorado CJ

These are terrific! and they brilliantly convey a sense of what a pleasure it must have been to be out there taking pictures. I was going to ask about what kind of sharpening you were using--looks great--. I was going to guess that you used Unsharp Mask, which I've been having some success with applied at the last stage, but perhaps not.

JVA

[Colorado CJ]

Thanks! Yeah, I love getting up into the high country and hiking/photographing. I'm lucky enough to live only 10 minutes from the mountains and National Forest and 30 minutes from the park, so I'm usually out in the mountains every weekend. Colorado is just a great place to live (only downside is the "fees/taxes" here but that is more than offset by the atmosphere).

I didn't use unsharp mask, I was using the normal "sharpen" feature on Photoshop. My camera was set to soft sharpen originally, so I could use the normal sharpen feature and not sharpen it too much.

Sharpening was the last thing I did, right after resizing it for the web.

[Photo1960]

Now you've gone and done it! Just when I thought 33 years away from there had cured me, you hit me with RMNP in the fall - my favorite time. I lived in Estes Park and would bicycle to some of these sites. Couldn't afford much photography then, but it was great to be there anyhow. Good shots, but maybe a little too heavy in the HDR correction to look natural.

[Aon]

Beautiful! I wish there was a place like this near where i live too.

[normhead]

This one deserves a bump.

[slowpez]

Your right Norm. Stunning series. The elk shots are something else.

[Kammerer]

This one deserves a bump.

Thanks for bumping the thread, normhead, or I wold have missed it.

Colorado CJ, these are beautiful images, all of them. It seems that you increased the contrast for skies in PP, and decreased the exposure, as mentioned. Makes the skies really stand out, perhaps a bit too much. On #5, there is a noticeable change in sky brightness on the left, but it should be possible to correct. Thanks much for sharing these photos, looking at them is the next best thing to actually being there!

[Colorado CJ]

Thought I'd bring this old thread back up once again. It is getting that time of year again in the high country. Fall is my favorite time in Rocky Mountain National Park. These photos were taken last October (first outing with my K-x) and it will be winter before you know it.

So, here's a small public service announcement If you want a little vacation with great photo opportunities, from now until about early November is the best time (in my opinion) to visit this great park.