Ancient English woodlands with Bluebells

Been out with Pentax K-S2 and 16-85mm Pentax lens experimenting with HDR mode. Mainly used the 16mm wide angle end of the lens.

The Bluebells in the ancient British woodland are on Beverley Westwood. Twas interesting trying to capture the scale of the bluebells and the ancient, mighty, tangled oaks.

Also tried a close up of the candles on a Horse Chestnut.

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Grumpy GrandPa, Recently Retired.
K-S2 and suffering from a relapse and so now buying digital camera kit - started with a little Lumix TZ80 and now LBA has re-occured for my K-S2. Not sure where it will lead!
Previous addiction has resulted in using Zeniths, Yashicamat, Chinons, Minoltas, Samsungs, Fujis, Cosina, Lumix, Canon, Nikon and Pentax etc etc - have tried most makes in the past 40 years. Love cameras - love taking photos even more

You can't beat a bluebell wood. Thanks for sharing yours.

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Both the *istDS and the K5 are incurably addicted to old glass

My page on Photocrowd - link

wasn't sure about the HDR look on first look - but now I've come back to them (and looked at the larger sizes) it does work for me. The second shot is lovely, maybe I'd be tempted to try to reduce the highlights is the tree branches, but the vibrant leaves and deep bluebells pair up so well

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LennyBloke

I like the 2nd shot too!
This is a normal shot



This is the HDR shot



They HDR ones have an element of looking like a painted picture. Need to get out more and experiment.
You folks here advised me to buy that lens - so I need to make good use of it

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Grumpy GrandPa, Recently Retired.
K-S2 and suffering from a relapse and so now buying digital camera kit - started with a little Lumix TZ80 and now LBA has re-occured for my K-S2. Not sure where it will lead!
Previous addiction has resulted in using Zeniths, Yashicamat, Chinons, Minoltas, Samsungs, Fujis, Cosina, Lumix, Canon, Nikon and Pentax etc etc - have tried most makes in the past 40 years. Love cameras - love taking photos even more

It's a great choice of lens - and Yes, the more you use it the more you'll get out of it

I think the lighting you have in the woodland has the extremes of shadow and highlight - almost everything you'll try in camera will be a compromise towards one end or the other - I've just tried a couple of tweaks on one of your images (hope you don't mind), I don't know if you use any editing software or not (it's not for everyone) but using a graduated filter allows you to drop the exposure for part of the subject and make a few local adjustments.

This is my result (not saying it's better, just showing how some editing can change the look)...

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LennyBloke

Thanks LennyBloke.
Edit away as you wish. I can email you the original if you want!

I used to use PhotoFiltre but am weaning myself onto Affinity

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Grumpy GrandPa, Recently Retired.
K-S2 and suffering from a relapse and so now buying digital camera kit - started with a little Lumix TZ80 and now LBA has re-occured for my K-S2. Not sure where it will lead!
Previous addiction has resulted in using Zeniths, Yashicamat, Chinons, Minoltas, Samsungs, Fujis, Cosina, Lumix, Canon, Nikon and Pentax etc etc - have tried most makes in the past 40 years. Love cameras - love taking photos even more

I'm another fan of that second shot in the initial set - a magnificent tree with just enough of the bluebells to support the composition without competing for attention.

Woodland shots like this might be one of those increasingly rare situations when a physical filter on the lens would do a better job than post-proccessing. Use a neutral density graduated filter to cut out some of the light from the top then expose for the average of top and bottom. Must try it myself one day!

Steve

prefer 2nd shot to 1st one on original post and the one on 2nd post. think the first image is too"harsh". I use Photomatix for HDR processing as it seems to give the best results . could get a really decent "natural" look which with PS or NIK i found nigh on impossible to get . HDR is great for Church / Cathedral interiors i found when struggling poor light in the smaller ones. This post has made me want to do some again. Keep going.

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odd lens or 2

Flickr

Yes, really like the images with the crazy tree branches

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Gareth
Welsh Photographer

My outfit: K1 gripped - K3ii - two Z-1P - Pentax D FA 24-70mm - Sigma 70-200mm OS HSM - Pentax modified DA* 60-250mm f4 - Irix 15mm Firefly - Pentax FA 35mm - FA 50mm - Sigma EX 20mm - FA 28-70mm f4 - Tamron SP 90mm macro - Pentax AF 540 FGZ II

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