Evening Shots - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Evening Shots (/thread-17228.html)

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Evening Shots - delb0y - Jul 13, 2016

It was our last session of this term, so the photography group went up a local hill to take a few close-up / macro landscapes. Got quite a few I was pleased with. Here are a couple to be going on with:

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RE: Evening Shots - EnglishBob - Jul 13, 2016

Great series, care to explain the technique / approach for the 2nd one?

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RE: Evening Shots - delb0y - Jul 14, 2016

Thanks Craig.

There was nothing special about the second one except spotting a shaft of sunlight coming through the trees and illuminating some nettles. The light was extremely bright, but very directional - much like a spotlight on a stage. You can actually see this light shaft in the first attachment below. I took lots of shots trying to find just the right angle of view, and spookily, once I got the right angle lady luck again stepped in because the background was now a tree trunk, which came out almost black. This, combined with the shadows, meant I had to do hardly any PP to get that black background.

The shot was 1/400th, ISO 100, f/6.3 on a 90mm macro lens (135mm in full frame money). I'm on a tripod as most shots were taken at very slow shutter speeds, but here that light beam was so bright I took shot after shot, upping the speed each time, until I got the effect I was after.

The second attachment below illustrates almost the same effect, but there's a shadow across the leaf that I didn't like. In other shots the out-of-focus branch in the top right was actually touching the nettles (see first attachment again) and I wanted the three elements separate to give the effect of three things floating in the darkness. So one more degree of turn and we're there.

Cheers
Derek

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RE: Evening Shots - EdMak - Jul 14, 2016

Super Derek, right place, right time, and, handled competently. Ed.

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RE: Evening Shots - Jocko - Jul 14, 2016

Great shots, but that middle one is exceptional. Love it.

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