Carsten is right, the shot is infinity focus (i.e., on the moon and it is at f/2). I was not trying to get everything in focus and really nothing but the moon. Instead I wanted a bit of a dreamy/sleepy look and I liked the colours and the mood of the shot. I know it may not be everyone's cup of tea (and maybe not anyone's but mine), but many of my landscape shots have only a small part of the scene in focus and I often like that better than everything in focus. Currently I have been trying to shoot landscapes a bit different than they are traditionally done, so this was an experiment of sorts. I liked it and I thought I would share it, and I do appreciate the comments R. Young and Carsten for noticing what I did with the shot.
Feb 13, 2014 at 05:35 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
Thanks for the id cyra. I knew they were mergansers of some sort, but not the exact species. In the little area of Lake Ontario in which I live (about a 2 km radius) there are over 40 species of ducks, so sometimes I like to capture some of the more interesting varieties. These are a very neat bird--very sleek, strong swimmers, quick divers, and lightning quick flyers and they don't seem to be bothered by the cold at all.
Just got a 135/2 in the mail but am way to terrified to put it through its paces without getting it thrown onto my personal article policy first. Can't wait to post the photos up here though. The few I have taken around my apartment look phenomenal. Also, it is a LARGE lens. With the hood attached it is quite a long lens (gives a 70-200 a run for its money).
Steve Spencer wrote:
Thanks for the id cyra. I knew they were mergansers of some sort, but not the exact species. In the little area of Lake Ontario in which I live (about a 2 km radius) there are over 40 species of ducks, so sometimes I like to capture some of the more interesting varieties. These are a very neat bird--very sleek, strong swimmers, quick divers, and lightning quick flyers and they don't seem to be bothered by the cold at all.
I knew they were Mergs but I don't know the NA species. I went on a special 4 day trip to Wu Yuan, China especially to find Scaly Breasted Mergansers (extremely rare birds found only in China). That's a long winded way of saying I enjoyed viewing those shots !
Steve Spencer wrote:
Carsten is right, the shot is infinity focus (i.e., on the moon and it is at f/2). I was not trying to get everything in focus and really nothing but the moon. Instead I wanted a bit of a dreamy/sleepy look and I liked the colours and the mood of the shot. I know it may not be everyone's cup of tea (and maybe not anyone's but mine), but many of my landscape shots have only a small part of the scene in focus and I often like that better than everything in focus. Currently I have been trying to shoot landscapes a bit different than they are traditionally done, so this was an experiment of sorts. I liked it and I thought I would share it, and I do appreciate the comments R. Young and Carsten for noticing what I did with the shot....Show more →
Ah, yes you are right. But I think if you look at the image closely around the clouds at the centre top of the photo, there seems to be quite a lot of grain / jpeg compression which together with the soft foreground I put down to resizing. Even the colour transitions in the water seem a bit... crunched. I think the photo could really do with a better upload, which might make the moon pop more against the OOF foreground. What image hosting service are you using?
Feb 14, 2014 at 08:46 PM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
R.Young wrote:
Ah, yes you are right. But I think if you look at the image closely around the clouds at the centre top of the photo, there seems to be quite a lot of grain / jpeg compression which together with the soft foreground I put down to resizing. Even the colour transitions in the water seem a bit... crunched. I think the photo could really do with a better upload, which might make the moon pop more against the OOF foreground. What image hosting service are you using?
I'm not using an image upload service at all. I use image upload here at FM and I am pretty sure that it doesn't compress the images at all. I did resize in photoshop, but I just used a two step resize to get to 1024 pixel height and then I saved it with very little compression in photoshop (quality 11 jpeg). Maybe I forgot to change the colour profile to srgb or did something else wrong. In any event I did resave the picture and reposted it. Let me know if you think it is any better. Thanks for your input.
Thank you Ronny and nibutto for your nice comments, and all you people for the likes!
darbo, thank you for your kind words and your hint. I gave those parashooting men a face
Hexonxonx, well done, those clouds give it a lot of depth, wonderful church portrait.
user222, I like your cityscape,
Ronny and mogud, nice shots!
