Out in the country

[Paul_G]

Kerstin and I headed down to my parent's house in Devon for a couple of days over the Easter weekend. The weather was generally fantastic and that and the scenery presented lots of great photo opportunities. Here are a selection of them.

Hope you like.

A highly flattering one of me, rarely seen in front of the camera Lol.

A rare HDR effort which I'm quite proud of.

And my first attempt at some star trails....

Cheers

Paul

 

[MrMark]

Star trails are awesome! Good job.

 

[BenWall]

Loving the dof on the first, is that a 70-200 2.8?

 

[Paul_G]

Loving the dof on the first, is that a 70-200 2.8?

Not quite....70-200mm f4 - couldn't really justify the f2.8!

 

[BenWall]

Not quite....70-200mm f4 - couldn't really justify the f2.8!

Doesn't look like you need the extra f1.2 tbh. Bokeh is amazing on the first, looks really sharp too.

Did you do any processing for the sky in picture 5?

 

[Paul_G]

Aye - 70-200mm f4l does produce extremely sharp photos wide open, plus the bokeh is pretty nice too.

As for 5, nope, no processing on the sky aside from the general processing I did on the photo (levels / curves / white balance).

 

[Ian]

The foreground separation on the SP is excellent, almost looks like you're cut and pasted on top of the photo! Already commented on the star trails on Flickr, but it's definitely something I'm gonna have a practice at when the chance presents itself. Good set Paul.

 

[ukaskew]

Superb, nice lack of street light pollution in the star trails, did you stack loads of short exposures or go for one long exposure?

 

[Ian]

Superb, nice lack of street light pollution in the star trails, did you stack loads of short exposures or go for one long exposure?

Lol, wait til you hear his answer, he told me on Flickr.. precision planning went into it I believe.

 

[Paul_G]

Cheers. One long exposure....and the answer Ian refers to....

"I just pretty much guessed and went for it. This was shot at f7.1 for about 40minutes and ISO 100. Set it going on bulb mode with the remote shutter, then went back inside to join my parents, drink some more whiskey....40minutes later I thought I should perhaps go and close the shutter.....Lol."

The 30mm shot was a shorter exposure...around 30 - 35 mins at a larger aperture.

 

[ukaskew]

^^^ I think that's standard procedure No exact science to it that I'm aware of.

 

[BenWall]

I want to try it, but everywhere around here (Nottingham) has so much light pollution! Found the coast to be good for it but I didn't have my remote last time I went.

 

[Leeshez]

Stunning piccys