Thank you, Hans!
I can see what you mean. The first one is quite simple and works best for me too, but YMMV as you say.
For me the light beams make the picture. As you can see in the picture attached to this reply, I felt the piece of rock in the middle was in the way. So I went there and took the pic from that point.
Not sure if you are interested in my opinion, each one has their own tastes, be here it goes.
This pano and the previous framing all have elements of interest, which are mutually exclusive, but they also share some interesting and difficult features.
The first set has more sense of depth, showing all the slope down to the lake, with its beautiful texture. The lighting is reasonably uniform across the whole composition.
In the second image there is a clear divide between foreground and distant ground; these two are also separated by a great difference in exposure. In this case I think the image would work better if one went one or another of two opposite directions. One possibility is to bring up shadow detail from the foreground, while trying to make the exposure as harmonious as possible in the far ground. The other is to give more emphasis to the far ground and the silhouetted figure in the notch; work on the exposure and colour of the far ground, letting the foreground go black and cropping out a good portion of it, to make the other walker disappear, while keeping the ridge profile intact.
Both have the defining feature of the rays, which also means that this is difficult lighting that poses technical challenges to the image. I seldom manage to get decent enough results from hazy and backlit landscapes like this, but I think with some work both could become good images.
Personally I feel the first composition will work better in black and white (perhaps with a slightly less dark sky).
