Across Riddlesdown, at 14mm

A sunny morning last week so took the chance to walk the length of Riddlesdown, taking the K7 & Samyang 14mm.


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Thanks for checking them out

Some peaceful scenes Nice colours, sharpness and contrast, looks to be a very good lens.

Hi Nigel

Struggling with these to find something I want to engage with.

#7 is a nice shot with a bit of a lead in and a nice sky.
#12 shares these characteristics
#9 invites me to sit on the bench, and on the tree stump and have a look around.

The others don't do an awful lot for me. Sorry

Thanks Russ, it was very peaceful - took off really for a bit of exercise, grabbed the camera bag and ended up messing around under the trees experimenting with compositions and some HDR (can you spot the HDR ones?).
It was an enjoyable time opn a beautiful morning off - must be the hobbyist in me coming through

Alan, thanks for the feedback - there's not a lot to create interest out of up there - I took the one lens and decided to try and make the most of it, so it had to be under the trees really. It will reward more effort in different lighting, and when the trees are in leave more. Did work hard at removing the halos though ... maybe I should give them the oil painting look ... or the plastic ?

I'd guess 2, 8 and 5 are.

Have to agree with you. I lived near by half a lifetime and more ago. Many of the surrounding roads have Lake District names (Buttermere, Dalegarth etc), but the promise is deceptive Still, it's a pleasant area and as good a place to try out a lens as any other. As you'll know, the landscape gets a bit more interesting along the backtrack to Hamsey Green, overlooking the downs; but it still ain't no Lake District.

The HDR ones are 7, 11 & 12 .... they were processed in Photomatix Pro 4 using either 4 or 5 exposures, and in 7 & 12 I made separate HDR versions for the sky as well and blended in PS. I was pleased with the shots as I was handholding and using auto bracketing, which can often give ghosting troubles caused by slight movements. I used HDR because it was impossible to get balanced detail on the ground without the sky blowing out massively. But I've tried to use it subtly here - have I succeeded?

Its the nearest to it I'll be getting for now unfortunately , so my brief is to work at making the most of it. Here I was looking to emphasise the starkness in the lighting and deep contrast in the shadows from the trees, and of course try to get that all important foreground interest at 14mm.

I'll check out Hamsey Green, thanks CMW!

Yes, I'd say they are subtle. I didn't automaically think HDR.

The first thing that struck me about all these is that they are all taken from the same perspective, i.e head height. try varying things. lie down and snap, or climb a tree and snap.

I can't see the point in all that hassle. Exposing to avoid the sky blowing out and raising shadows could could have achieved the same thing on all of those with just one shot.

Glad you think so ... The aim very much just to boost visible DR without too much of the hdr 'look'. I wonder if anyone would have noticed. If I didn't say?

Smeggy, thanks for commenting and its always good advice, although in fact a few are shot near ground level, perhaps knee height.

My assessment of the hdr scenes, from taking single test shots, was that I had no chance of getting the natural DR in a single shot, and not just because its a K7. The HDR is no hassle, gave me great enjoyment actually both shooting the brackets and the detailed image work on the pc.

Does anyone really think you could record and reproduce the scene as lit in my no.12 there with just a single exposure?

I sort of agree with Alan (Blythman) on these. 7, 9 and 12 are my favourites, not due to processing techniques but because they are better composed and lead the eye more effectively than the others.

They are all sharp, decently exposed, decent colours, but I just can't get too excited by them I am afraid! I don't think the location helped, but there are probably some more creative and different shots available there - Smeggy makes a good point about this.

Regards
David

Glad you think so ... The aim very much just to boost visible DR without too much of the hdr 'look'. I wonder if anyone would have noticed. If I didn't say?
I can't tell just from the posted image. But if you care to put up the most exposed raw from the sequence, short of blown highlights, I'll have a go.

Thankyou David, and I am very glad about all that ... I was practicing landscape technique and the shots gave me, the camera & the computer, a very good workout! I take on board the other points about the compositions and 'grab factor' of some of the shots. I did try hard to get interesting foreground and viewpoints into the distance, but there's no doubt that there's more potential to explore, and I'm not far away so chances will come.

With all thats been said on here recently I think we can all agree that its a combination of of artistry and technique that will produce the best images - you said something similar recently David about processing skills and their importance and I agreed with that.

The HDR Question

gwing has kindly offered to try a single shot version, and I will show the unprocessed 'originals' from the mid to high range of my 5 brackets, as well as my own attempts to produce the best result from those single frames.

My own belief is this ... this scene IMO is beyond the DR of our cameras - yes, you could shoot it all right, but any single exposure is a compromise as you can only pitch it for the highlights unless you are prepared to accept a blown sky. And I also believe that what is commonly accepted as 'natural' is in fact just a way we have got used to seeing scenes with a high DR reproduced by the tradional photographic process. HDR offers to only way to display the scene in a manner akin to how our eyes can perceive it - thats my theory anyway

Lets try it out - I'll upload some versions soon for comparison!