When in the Rockies a week back, at Cripple Creek, we decided to take a road trip to St Elmo, CO. It’s a “ghost town” that’s nearly 10,000 feet in altitude. We’d never been there but long on the bucket list of locales to explore with our camera. The key was to be there in fall when the valley it’s nestled in comes to life with color. After the two hour ride, we arrived and I can honestly say, it did not disappoint!
As you can see from the photos, we hit the fall color at the exact right time. That was huge as it really made every turn a great photo opp. St Elmo has a very free and western lifestyle which translates to everyone is friendly until you cross the line. We had a grand time walking the streets with all the other tourists who venture up into the hills to see the sites. The General Store which is the heart of the tourism closed the next day so we made the most of it all with camera in hand. What a grand day!
I cruised the town with the Df / 24-70AFS with a Polarizer attached. Why that combo? Look at the skies … their are bald, bald, bald!
What does the skies have to do with using a Polarizer? Well, you can watch this class on shooting fall color which will help but on the short, the polarizer removed reflections, the reflections of the blue skies! I’m not using the Polarizer for “blue” skies but to remove that blue reflection from the leaves so their color blazes through (you want blue skies, use the Luminance Panel in ACR). With that blaze of color, it set the scene for the rest of St Elmo which made the photography a slam dunk. Oh, one other detail that I think is kinda big. I shot in Cloudy White Balance the whole time. Why? The Kelvin temp was around 9800. How do I know that number? I set the WB manually to 10k and that image looked like what I was seeing. So with Auto WB stopping at 8k, to get the correct color I set the camera to Cloudy. This clear as mud to you? Do some testing and teach yourself. You’ll find you’re a great teacher!