Afternoon Light

Late Afternoon Sun and Trees, Duirinish (Canon EOS 5d Mark II, 17-35mm lens at 18mm, ISO 100, 1/50sec at f/22, ND2 Grad Filter, Tripod)

Being Friday and such a lovely afternnon I decided to pop out of the office and check a few things on the estate, and of course took my camera with me.  I would have liked to have been able to use the new large frmat film camera but that will take time to sort out so I resprted to the trusty DSLR. 

When you have been photographing an area for a very long time, and particularly when you have been doing it alot over the past couple of years it is sometimes a bit difficult the get inspired and you feel that you are just taking the same old views, which is usually true.  However, the light is always changing and sometimes you notice a new viewpoint or perspective as was the case with the above photo.  I was just walking back to the car on the Duirinish grazings when I noticed the two trees which I though would be good silhoutted against the blue sky and setting sun.  I took a few straight shots but also auto-bracketed by 2 stops since I was looking straight into the sun and ended up using those for an HDR merge in Lightroom.  The above photo is basically the result with little other edits, apart from removing the usual dust spots from the sensor and a couple of light aberations.

The following shot was taken not long before the above one at Port Ban, near Port an Eorna.  This is a favourite photo spot of mine and the light was not too bad, would have been better but I ended up talking to a friend for a while beforehand - you now who you are!.  Anyway, for this photo I wanted to try and get the foreground rocks and beach in view with the island in the mid distance and the Bealach an Ba in the background all in resonable focus.  I guess this si where the new large format camera would have helped, but in this case I opted for f/22 to maximise the depth of field.  Again I used a light ND Grad  filter (ND2) to try and avoid the brighter sky being blown out.  Perhaps I should have opted for a strnger one but I am just messing around a bit wit them just now and learning as I go.  The result was that the foreground was a bit darked than I wanted but I did a little adjustment in Nik's Vivezia plugin and the rsult is pretty decent I think.

Port Ban and the Bealach na Ba (Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 24-105mm lens at 24mm, ISO 100, 1/5sec at f/22, ND2 Grad Filter, Tripod)

The final image is one that resulted as a spontaneous response to some old fishing gear on the shore at Port Ban.  I was keen to try and do something different from the usual landscapes so thought I wouold try these old ropes and a bouy as a sort of still life.  I originally took the shot with the whole bouy and the ropes in view but then zoomed in as afar as the lens would allow and I much prefer the toe closer perspective.  I had always intended to covert it to black & white as the colours were not great, a bit washed out and the subject was in quite deep shade.

Ropes and a Bouy (Canon EOS 5D mark II, 24-105mm lens at 105mm, ISO 100, 2sec at f/22, Tripod)