Frost on Merced River rocks 1

Having a little bit of time to myself on my last trip to Yosemite, I photographed a bit of the Merced River from Valley View. The other photographs I would otherwise be after weren't there - El Capitan didn't have significant snow on it. There were no clouds in the sky or fog blowing up against the valley walls.

So, I found out how to get this classic image. The time this was shot was noon or shortly after. The valley walls were blocking the sun on the valley floor, allowing the frost to stick around. The light in the river is the reflection of the light off of El Capitan.

The frost crystals on the rocks are on the order of 1 inch long - a large, cold, koosh ball.

The color temperatures confused the camera and so when I brought it back into Aperture I worked on getting the white right. I put a color sampler on a section of snow and adjusted the white balance until the red and blue were close in value (taking it from ~5000K to 10,000 K). At this point I then adjusted the white end luminescence level until the spot of snow I was looking at was about 180, 180, 180. I had bracketed the exposure, and selected the image that had the least amount of adjustments and smallest amount of area being flagged as 'hot' at the end.