Cheers

That is a lovely shot, with the rain drops adding the icing to the cake.

I cant wait to get one.....need to get this kidney sold first though

The first is very nice. Best way to capture a boat like that....low and wide.

No 6 is not shabby either.

The edit really improves it. Perfect subject for b+w

What did you focus on ? It appears that the shed and wooden arbour are in sharpest focus with everything else a bit soft, especially further into the image. You used f16 which will give you a wide depth of field, but that does not mean that at 100% zoom everything will be in sharp focus. Your plane of focus should be very sharp however. f16 is also where diffraction will start to kick in causing softening. I added no "output sharpening" to these images but when applied the shed and arbour sharpen up quite nicely. The edges at 18mm are always going to be much softer than the centre.

But in your shoes I would do some further testing. Use a medium aperture like f8 and be clear where you are focussing. Then examine the results. Post on here or email me some images if you would like me to have a look.

Andrew, thanks for sending the DNG files. I processed them in ACR using an auto setting for exposure etc. I didnt apply any output sharpening but I made a noise reduction edit to one of them. These are full size jpegs so click for the larger versions. They are listed on my Flickr page as private so only viewers of this forum will be able to see them. I will delete them in a week or so, so download them if you want to keep them for a reference.

The one with the bird has a great deal of out of focus areas but I cannot see noise being particularly troublesome. OOF areas will usually show more noise.

The one of the garden is more interesting. There is visible noise in particular on the brown bin and also the shaded part of the shed. I applied a genera noise reduction in Photoshop which reduces it a bit. You can compare the noise reduced one with the other. The original shot is underexposed and I suggest that the brightening of these areas in raw conversion has led to the noise.

Would be interested in anyone else's thoughts ?









and now the NR image

The astrotracer needs to know where you are in the world so it can move the sensor correctly.

I am no expert but I think star trails will still be visible at the edges with very wide lenses.

Press GPS button before using the Astrotracer function

Really nicely framed and plenty of interest in both pictures to capture the viewers attention.

ps...the dog was the only one who spotted you !