Wimborne / New Forest Morning (and landscape shooting tips)

A poem:

It was a cold and frosty morning,
and the sun was shining bright,
when I went a wandering and nearly caught frostbite!

Yes, it was very, very cold this morning: -3.5C when I got back into my car in Wimborne after wandeing around in a field with my 5D2, tripod etc.  This post shows some results and has some comments about things I've learnt/am learning about shooting like this.

This first shot is from a field near Wimborne.  Out of the car with the tripod, cable release, mirror lockup, manual focus with LiveView.  When taking landscape shots it is typical to get some focus and some foreground interest - in this case I've used the branch in the foreground.  The the luminance of the blue channel has been dropped a bit to make the sky a little more how I remember - in order to get some brightness on the foreground I had to overexpose the sky a bit as I didn't have my Lee ND grad filter with me on this day (daft mistake - I should always have this!)

Wimborne Morning (5D2, 17-40L at 17mm, 0.6s at f14, ISO100)

This following shot is a closer view of the bridge that you can see in the background of the shot above.  It is the same as the first photo at the very top of this page, but processed in B&W.  I did a certain amount of standard processing (cropping, clarity/contrast/fill light improvements) then created a virtual copy of the image and processed the colour and B&W images seperately.  Again, I used a reduction in the blue channel luminance to bring out sky detail, but in the B&W I case I took it to more of an extreme.  As the sky looks quite dark and the foreground quite light, it takes on the appearance of an HDR image (although this was from a single exposure, I suppose as an end-result the techniques I used would be similar to the processing done on a single RAW image in a program like Photomatix)

Morning Bridge (5D2, 17-40L at 17mm, 0.6s at f14, ISO100)

Moving on from Wimborne, I went through Ringwood, Moyles Court and on the Rockford.  This is the first time I've investigated this area, and I was a little short on time.  I parked in a small car park on the road, and quickly climed a fairly substantial hill (luckily I'm fairly fit - it's handy for these moments!).  The sunlight was beautiful, and this climb reminded me of the massive change in view you can get from a modest ascent.

Of most interest was the mist on the rolling hills, but I had a couple of things against me for that image.  Firstly, as I mentioned, I didn't have my ND grad with me so it becomes impossible to get a single appropriate exposure for both foreground and direct sun.  Secondly, the 17-40L, whilst a great lens, does not cope with flare very well, and pointing directly at the sun results in a significant amount of flare artifacts and a drop in contrast across a lot of the image.  Sometimes this can be used for good effect, but mostly I try to avoid having the sun in any shots with the 17-40L.

Here's a shot of the heather at Rockford Common - in the distance, you can see the morning sunlight on the hills, and the heather covers most of the top of the hills.  There are lots of footpaths, and I will get back out there to investigate this area more thoroughly soon:

Rockford Heather (5D2, 17-40L at 17mm, 1/13s at f14, ISO100)

From Rockford, I travelled towards Stoney Cross to get on the A31.  I passed a small car park on the right (I have no idea of the name as there was no sign), but the mist in the trees and the light on the ground caught my attention.  Once again, I hopped out of the car with the camera already on the tripod and took a few shots.  I was tempted and shot a few with sun in the frame (contrary to my own advice above), and ended up discarding almost all of them for exactly the reason I've said above!  I wanted to capture the tree line and the mist, and this shot has some of this.  To be honest, I feel there's too much foreground and I really needed a longer lens here (notice I was at the end of the 17-40L's range), but the contrast between the foreground, trees and sky made for an interesting layered image (there's a horse almost smack bang in the middle too - click on the image to see it):

New Forest Sunshine (5D2, 17-40L at 40mm, 1/25s at f14, ISO100)

I have a habit of noticing more shots as I'm about to pack away, and back at the car I saw these lovely horse shoe marks on the ground.  I thought that would make a nice focus to the shot, so I composed with the marks in the foreground and the sun just peeking in from the left.  Notice the flare on the image, but I actually quite like it here.  From a processing point of view, I increased the contrast and adjusted the black point to make the foregound markings stand out more and make the tress more of a silhouette:

Horse-steps (5D2, 17-40L at 33mm, 1/40s at f14, ISO100)

Finally, this image is nothing to do with the early morning shot - I just liked it as a landscape shot!  I was out on a fairly uninspired lunchtime trot with the camera, and found these teasels.  I took some high level shots without an interesting background, and as I lowered my viewpoint I realised I could put the plant wherever I wanted against the sky.  Using LiveView, I composed the shot with the teasel between the gap in the clouds.  The original exposure made the plant a little dark, so I've lightened to bring out the detail.  Although this isn't a brilliant shot, it's a technique that I want to play with over the next few weeks - I think there's lots of potential there!  (Note that the apparent blockyness in the image is not due to the camera - although ISO800 was way higher than necessary for this shot, the 5D2 is very clean at this level.  The artefacts are due to my output process from Lightroom which I need to review to get rid of these annoyances on my exported images).

In the Clouds (5D2, 17-40L at 40mm, 1/1250s at f8, ISO800)

Comments



I wanted to note a few things that I've learnt over time and remembered recently whilst doing these landscape shots, so here's some notes:

• When it's cold, wrap up warm.  Take more than you need, and put it all on.  It's very annoying having to stop a shoot because your hands or feet are too cold.  Think I've said this before on the blog, but it's important so I'm saying it again :-)
• If you're planning on a bit of a drive while landscape shooting, leave the camera on the tripod when you put it back in the car.  I put mine on the front seat, camera against the seat with the tripod pointing out towards the passenger door.  I then wrap the seatbelt around the tripod legs and pull it tight.  In that way, the whole lot isn't going anywhere, and the camera is protected by the seat.  This makes it much easier to stop, get out and grab a shot properly rather than having to faff around with setting everything back up again.
• I have a protective filter on my 17-40L.  I don't normally use them as I don't like the idea of a degradation of image quality on an expensive lens, but the 17-40L is not weather-sealed if it doesn't have a filter on.  Having said that, if the weather is nice, it's worth taking the filter off - any dirt etc on it will cause more flare as it catches that early morning or evening sunlight.
• Manual focussing with LiveView is really useful.  Use hyperfocal focussing (lots of info on the web about this) where necessary - basically, use a small aperture (I tend to go with f14 or f16 as much smaller and you soften the image due to diffraction), and focus about 1/3 way into the image.  Using the DoF preview button and LiveView (magnified fully) will let you review the details before the shot.
• ALWAYS check the shot after you've taken it at full magnification.  There have been a number of times I've taken a shot that I've loved on the rear LCD, only to get home and start processing and find it's technically flawed beyond repair.
• When driving around to a specific place, keep not of other areas you pass that might be worth a visit.  As a phototographer, I always tend to have my eyes open for new places, but it's worth noting these down and making a point to get back and check them out.
• Finally, don't try and get everything done in one morning.  Pick a place you want to shoot sunrise or sunset, go there and stay there until the light has gone.  Otherwise, you'll inevitably find that the perfect light occurs while you're driving between places!  Also, this gets you out more to take more shots :-)