I’m getting better at stopping the car, when I see something interesting. This time I saw the mist on the pond, and the sunshine going through the mist. The car went over the curb and luckily nobody was just behind me. Kind of stupid to drive so crazy; it was in a round about, and I could just have taken another round, but I got excited. Notice how the sun shines in one tree, but not the rest.

About the composition

I placed the sun behind the tree. It gave less power from the sun. It is about an hour after sunrise, an the sun is quite strong. I used the rim of the pond as a lead in line, but also the sun coming through the mist on the lake works as a lead in line.

About the processing

This is an HDR from 9 shots with one EV step between each shot. I used Photomatix to make the tone mapped image, and then I copied all 9 original shots plus the tone mapped into Photoshop as layers. The ducks were not exactly sitting ducks, so I had to mask them in from individual images to de-ghost them. I then removed all bluish colors, giving this almost black and white look with a golden glow, and a little green grass. In the foreground I removed a ton of leaves and floating feathers from the water.

After two nights in gorgeous Queenstown in New Zealand, we continued on our way. It was a clear blue and a little cold morning in November 2012. Just at the out skirts of Queenstown we pulled over the campervan and I shot a few shots, including this one.

It is a 5 shot HDR photo shot with my 28-300mm lens at 28mm. Processing wise this is fairly standard processing, first processed in Photomatix and then I blended layers in Photoshop CS6. Only the spiky grass thingie in the lower right hand corner have received a very special treatment. It’s in the shade and turned out too dark, so I had to ‘lighten it up’.

EXIF: 28mm, ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/50 sec.
Why? At a wide angle as 28mm you can get almost anything sharp, but not what’s absolutely closest. It is shot hand held, so I had to use a fast shutter speed on all 5 shots. By using ISO 200 instead of ISO 100 I made the shutter speed twice as fast. I didn’t dare to go higher on the f-stop (that is a lower number – remember, that they work counter intuitive), because the foreground had to be sharp too. Most of my shots in this spot failed, because the foreground was not sharp enough. I should have used a tripod and lowered the f-stop to perhaps f/16.

This is a 5 shot HDR. I tone mapped it in Photomatix and then I blended the five original shots into the tone mapped image, by using Photoshop. There is no part I have blended in 100%. The sky is blended in various degrees with the 0 and minus 1 exposure. The same goes with the rocks. The trees on the left is more or less the clean tone mapped version. In the end I used a Topaz adjust filter to add a little warmth and sharpness to the photo. This step I could have done by using adjustment layers, and Unsharp Mask in Photoshop as well.

Finally I took it into Light room and did a few adjustments. The right hand side of the trees was too dark. I added a little light by using the brush tool, and then I added little contrast global contrast.