One of the many special places to visit in Utah is Arches National Park. There is claimed to be over two thousand arches of many types within the park boundaries. Wall Arch is a good example of an arch made in one of the thousands of thin vertical sandstone fins. It's right along the Devil's Garden trail past Landscape Arch on the way to Double O Arch.
I took this photograph with my Minolta DiMAGE A1 digital camera. The lens was set to its shortest position which is 7.2mm (equivalent to 28mm on a 35mm camera) at f/8 and ISO 100. I applied perspective correction in two directions using Adobe Photoshop to help compensate for the view upward and along the length of the arch so it would look more like the view seen through eyes.
I also used a technique I developed for use with digital cameras in scenes with a wide range of light as in this one. I set the camera's contrast control to the lowest setting and then apply an 'S' shaped contrast curve in Photoshop to increase the contrast to the normal range. This allows me to capture a wide dynamic range while preserving shadow and highlight details. Photograph by Rick Scott.
Updated: 23 June 2004