went down to the woods today..

[Kaya75]

Hi All,

Went down to the woods on Sunday (ok not today..re title..) would love some critic on these, there's a link to the gallery of around 18 pics if anyone's interested :)

http://www.thepons.co.uk/webcritics/IMG_3288.jpg

http://www.thepons.co.uk/webcritics/IMG_3219.jpg

link to gallery: http://www.thepons.co.uk/norsey/

cheers all

Kaya :)

[PETERSYMES]

Thats a tricky subject you have taken on there, i often try to shoot trees and almost always fail.
I think this is where the superior quality of the Human eye catches us out by conveying tone and depth so effortlesly, unfortunately it is much harder to capture this in a two dimensional medium. In you second picture there is not enough sense of depth so the trees do not sperate into foreground, mid and background giving the depth. The trees appear as a jumble of wood and branches and the patch of bright green light distracts.
In the first you have shot into the sun, maybe to deliberately sillouette the trees but the sun is posterised and the sky has banding, Perhaps a result of the JPEG conversion.
Maybe try these again and catch that winter sun even earlier when the very accute angle of light generates a greater sense of depth but be quick becuase it does not last very long.

[Robert_Lay]

I've very rarely ever gotten a decent image from shooting directly into the sun, and I don't know why people do it when there is no compelling reason to do so.

In the second shot the glare that is fogging up the lower left corner is painful.

Sometimes (when it shields the lens outer surface from the direct rays) a lens hood will help. Even better is to have someone who is with you simply hold their hand so as to shade the lens surface.

[Kaya75]

Thanks for the replies :) - Peter you're right the banding in the first shot is JPG / Size / webopt conversion effect

Woodlands have always been a bit of a tough subject for me - couple this with a 11 - 2:30pm time slot in a very bright very low February sun and i got myself a challenge.

The two above are the ones i'm unsure of - i was using a "flower" (?) lens hood but still have flare problems (also my UV filter was a little streaked due to a random sneeze!lol), as you said Robert i needed a shield you've given me the idea to use my trigrip over the lens. I've always used my hand to shield the prime lenses before but i've found my arms not quite long enough with the tele lenses when the suns at extreme angles, i could have used a tripod but this was a recce / challenged shoot for fun when this fog clears up i shall to go back early doors.. as you advice Peter, to catch the sun at a lower angle.

With the first shot i was trying to silhouette the trees against the sun but i wasn't sure about this first one - i do shoot into the sun a bit to be fair i like breaking rules but have read your thoughts i agree it's not a strong image, i'f i'd have gotten around to the right and and shot across the loose line of trees to get a greater perspective maybe, I've soften these and placed a monochrome layer at 75% over the top of the first to mute the colours, i thought about giving a couple from the first series a serreal kind of monotone faux infer red effect but i'll wait until i get back with a better selection - as the TV chefs are always banging one about - quality RAW ingredients and all that!.

Thanks Peter and Robert for your words of wisdom and clarity :)

Thanks for the great advice as always
Kaya