Teardrop Arch

This is Teardrop Arch in Monument Valley. It makes a stunning frame for the distant desert mountains. The challenge here is depth of field. In order to compose this image such that the entirety of the opening fills most of the viewfinder, I needed to use a 70mm focal length (on a 24-105mm lens). That meant the smallest of lens apertures had to be used so both the foreground rock face and the distant landscape were sharp. I focused on the arch itself which was approximately the hyperlocal distance. My settings were f/22 and 640 ISO. The landscape in the distance was lit by an afternoon sun while the rock face was in shadow, so I used HDR to deal with the contrast. This is a 5-frame composite with one f/stop increments between frames and with the shutter speed varying the exposures.