What’s Your Preference?

stevesutt89 · #1 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 09:48 AM

Took this one on my drive to school yesterday morning, i've been meaning to capture that tree for months now, i was hoping to get some fog in the shot, but it had dissappeared by the time i got there.

f/2.8 1/640 sec ISO 50

What do you think?
I've decided that i don't like the bright red lens flare, so i'll try and get rif of it when i get a chance (as i don't know how to do this yet, so it might take a while of experimenting)

Palachandra · #2 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 10:31 AM

I like this shot. Dews on the grass surface, placement of tree, long shadow and beautiful sky.

How the tree branches have got red color tones?

I am just curious to know any specific reason for using large aperture? The top right portion gives somewhat harsh feeling because of direct sunlight. May be the smaller aperture could have avoided this.

stevesutt89 · #3 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 10:40 AM

The reason the tree branches appear red is i think from lens flare as well, i'm not really sure but it tends to happen with my camera when in extremely harsh lighting conditions (ie when pointing it at the sun, such as i did)
the large apeture was used simply because my camera was in program mode and it chose it for me. However from my experience with this camera, changeing the apeture has very little effect on depth of field simply because it is a 'point a shoot' with a small sensor and only has a apeture range from f/2.8-f/8

subrataofkris · #4 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 11:15 AM

Hi stevesutt89,

This is very scenic, I can almost jump out of my car and wet my feet in the morning dew on the green carpet and play with the long shadows. But, I cannot look at the tree, there is blinding light there and the sky is too bright to be colourful.

If I want the tree to grace the background and the sky to look more saturated with colours, I would do the following:
Turn my aperture setting to max (F/8), 1/640 is very high speed, so the camera will play with it easily. If still the DOF does not improve, I will send a mail to Kodak titled 'Miracle'
Then I will set the exposure compensation to -1 EV (currently it is +1EV). This will darken my sky a bit.
Finally I will move in my car and see that the sun does not fall on on the lens, so bye bye flare.

I should not be bothered by the red outlines of the branches, they are not bad.

Cheers

melanie2457 · #5 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 04:13 PM

I love everything about this picture except for the brightness of the sun in the upper right.

I might suggest moving but then you wouldn't have the shadow of the tree where it is.

Then I might suggest a different time of day but then no dew and you might not have that gorgeous sky.

Still... its worth some attention so keep trying different days and you never know!

ELAY · #6 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 04:30 PM

Hey Steve --

What a great shot. The greens are fantastic, and the shadow cast by the tree really makes the shot. The composition looks good too -- the tree is right where it should be (though maybe the crop is a tiny bit tight to the top of the tree -- could you post the original?).

The sun is a problem, but without the sun you don't get the shadows or that great lighting. Sometimes you have to accept a technical flaw to get the moment.

When shooting into the sun, sometimes higher apertures do help control the appearance of the sun (and don't worry about depth of field -- with that camera, shooting this scene, playing with your aperture is not going to change the depth of field perceptibly). If you get the chance next time, slip your camera into A mode and crank the aperture up to f/16 or even f/22 (though if I am counting right, by F/22 you will be getting some pretty slow shutter speeds). The other thing you could try is a polarizing filter, if your camera takes them. The sun is low here, so a polarizer wouldn't have a huge effect on the sky, but it might contain the blowout a bit.

But hey, that is a great shot, with or without the blowout and the flare.

stevesutt89 · #7 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 06:53 AM

Thanks for the helpful comments guys (i do love it when people say bad things about my pictures, because then i learn and can improve)
I hope to retake this pictre next monday morning taking into account what you guys said

For now i've mad an edit of the original that gets rid of the bright blown out sun (by flipping the dark side of the tree onto the light side) and gives it a wider crop.
Here we go:

ELAY · #8 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 11:56 AM

Good work on the edit -- this is the second time in as many days that somebody has rescued a blown out photo that I would have that was non-repairable.

If I am working hard to pick a flaw, I would say that with the sun more high centre, the shadow falls wrong -- but I don't think I would have picked that out if I hadn't known that you did some rearranging.

EL

peeperita · #9 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 01:17 PM

i took the liberty of taking out the lens flare......using the eliptical marquee and then selective color on the red......upping the cyan.....i also had good results with the marquee and red eye reduction at a low setting......17% i think.....

then again.....your results of your fix are beautiful.....