Palouse Falls

Palouse Falls - Washington
XF-IQ3100, 28mm (~18mm FF equiv.), ISO 50, f/8, 40s

When I first arrived at Palouse Falls, about an 80 mile drive from the main portion of The Palouse where most people photograph the rolling farmland, it was gray and overcast and I was very disappointed that despite a clear sky forecast for great night photograph, it was a bit dreary.  I got there about 2 hours before sunset and there were about a dozen photographers there staking out their ideal spot.  As it got closer to sunset and it continued to be gray and dreary, only four of us remained - the rest had given up.  Those of us remaining were jovial, none of us had ever met before. We talked about photography and geology while we waited.  I think I was personally responsible for two of them sticking it out because I kept saying that there was a chance that we'd get a little underside lighting of the clouds right at sunset since I saw a bit of a glow to the far west.  We were rewarded with this for about 90 seconds where we worked frantically.  The widest 645 format SLR lens is 28mm or about 18mm on full frame - it is just barely wide enough to get most of the scene but ideally 12-15mm is better so I quickly executed a panorama, not thinking it would stitch very well due to the really wide angle lens in use.  Much to my delight, when I came back to this yesterday as I was processing photos from the trip, PTGui had absolutely no problem assembling the images (Photomerge in PS failed miserably).  PTGui estimates this to be a 13mm field of view in full frame 35mm terms.