A couple and a misty cow at sunset

Tobers · 05-10-2007, 11:24 AM

Haven't posted any pics for a while, so here's a couple for you. Spending too much time reading camera review websites and not enough time taking pics!!

Driving home through Windsor Great Park on Wednesday, the sun was going down in a rather excellent fashion.

#1 Here's an oldish couple off for an evening stroll. Metering was a bit tricky as I didn't have time to put an ND grad on. I ended up bracketing the shot, choosing the one that gave the best exposure, and then lightended the foreground a tad in Lightroom. I tried to get the lead in line, the sun reflection in the puddle and the lovely shades of colours. 30D 17-55 @ 55 f9 1/125th ISO 100, tripod. Chose the aperture (a "who cares" aperture I think it's called) and let the camera sort the shutter speed.

#2 Further up the road some mist was rising off the fields as the sun went below the horizon. A cow wandered across and stood nicely next to the fence which was very helpful. Pretty much as it came out of the camera. The sun was already down so unfortunately I lost the lovely warmth of the shot above. It could do without the road on the right but I couldn't really move that. 30D 70-200 @ 200, f16, 1.6sec, tripod. With the slow shutter, I had lots of pics with the cow moving. Thankfully he stayed still for this one long enough. I wanted as much of the shot in focus as pos so chose the aperture of f16 first, and let the camera sort out the shutter speed.

Cheers

Tobers

rizingstar · 05-10-2007, 11:32 AM

#1 Excellent,shame the sun wasn't higher so the reflection in the puddle would have been a full sun,you wouldn't have been able to lower the tripod either with the trees in the way..

then again the sun in the puddle might have looked too full on

Tobers · 05-10-2007, 11:41 AM

It was higher but by the time I'd finished farting about it had moved

.

allymac123 · 05-10-2007, 12:07 PM

Both lovely and atmospheric.

The 2nd doesn't quite work for me though I'm afraid there's just a bit too much going on I think with the fence, cow, 2 trees, gravel and road I don't really know what its a pivture of. The mist is gorgeous though. Would it have been possible just to isolate a tree with the mist around the bottom of it?

lmccauley · 05-10-2007, 12:08 PM

I like the composition of both of them.

The bottom one especially has an unusual cross of the line of the fence and the mist.

T0MAT01 · 05-10-2007, 12:13 PM

Nice shots, but I agree with Ally about the second.
Showing a little more tree and forgetting the gravel would have worked better IMO.

Tobers · 05-10-2007, 12:38 PM

Ta - agree about the second. The subject is the cow and technically there is a nice lead line from the fence. However it's not strong enough. There were another bunch of cows off to the left, but little mist. I did delete a few - let me have a rummage and see what I can find.

edit: had a look at the deleted ones and they are still rubbish

Paranormalist · 05-10-2007, 4:26 PM

The mist would have been a mist...sorry...missed opportunity had you not have taken the shot.

stevegreen · 05-10-2007, 4:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tobers

edit: had a look at the deleted ones and they are still rubbish

story of my life.........even with the kept ones

I like the first but personally would have cropped the lower part of the path off keeping the two people right in the bottom of the frame.

onefivenine · 05-10-2007, 6:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tobers

Ta - agree about the second. The subject is the cow and technically there is a nice lead line from the fence. However it's not strong enough. There were another bunch of cows off to the left, but little mist. I did delete a few - let me have a rummage and see what I can find.

edit: had a look at the deleted ones and they are still rubbish

Quote:

Originally Posted by allymac123

Both lovely and atmospheric.

The 2nd doesn't quite work for me though I'm afraid there's just a bit too much going on I think with the fence, cow, 2 trees, gravel and road I don't really know what its a pivture of. The mist is gorgeous though. Would it have been possible just to isolate a tree with the mist around the bottom of it?

Amazing what a little mist can do.

If there was no mist nor cow then I think it would work great.

With mist and cow I think you'd have been better on the other side of the fence, closer, framing the cow on the right third.

It's a great capture though... very nice exposure.