I like it though I think you're right it does look a bit too bright in the center great colors though. I think the one you posted in the other forum http://www.alphamountworld.com/forums/photo-sharing-forum/hiking-linda-v... is about perfect just fyi. I like the hills in this too.

Just out of curiousity are the colors here pretty true to how the sunset looked? I always have problems with my A700 and sunrise/sunset getting the color accurate so I was curious was settings you used if so.

This picture has me pretty conflicted because I like the cloud streak in front of the sun. The colors are pretty true to how the sunset looked. I had the A200 set to RAW mode with the standard creative setting. Then, in sony's RAW software, I played around a little with exposure, saturation, and contrast did some noise reduction, but it's not too far from how it looked straight out of the camera. There were some forest fires in AZ (far away) when I shot these, which can create some beautiful colors in the sky. Quite a steep price to pay for a nice sunset though, eh?

And I actually like the exposure quite a bit. It lends to the foreground greatly and lets you see the marvelous shadows of the mountains. If you had increased your shutter speed or stopped down more to compensate for that bright sun any more, you would have lost those mountains. Not much of a choice when the Sun is still this high on the horizon.

Given the circumstances, it is an excellent image and I, like you, am drawn to the clouds directly in front of the Sun.

My last thought is that I would really like to see more of this scene in a more traditional 3:2 landscape photograph.

Carl