Bear Mountain in sunlight

[Harold_L]

When we went walking this morning, a large cloud covered the Sun and shadowed the foreground. Bear Mt was is full sunlight, however. Doe this picture work for you, or would you have rather seen everything sunlit? Canon S500.

Harold

[MazerRakhm]

I don't know, it deffinitely stands out more with only the mountain being lit.

[Harold_L]

I felt that way when I decided to take the picture. In any case, the lighting was quite unique, I thought, with no sun light on the landscape clear to the far trees on the edge of the hill, and no cloud shadow on the mountain.

Harold

[kenyc]

Good job Harold. Wide contrast range and hard to deal with, but you've done well with it. I seems a bit "soft" to me. I tried a few myself something like this in the foothills in Golden and views towards the Flatirons. Wide exposure range like this is challenging.

KAC

[Harold_L]

Thanks, Kenny. I too feel that this, and many other of my images, are soft. I am wondering whether it is a matter of the lens mechanism just not focusing properly, or whether it is inherently a soft lens in my camera. One of these days I will try to set up a focus test of some sort.

Harold

[jaypie77]

Obviously you will get better images with better equipment... but you might even get better shots with a tripod - did you happen to use one for this shot?

[kenyc]

What kind of post-processing did you do? I'm not familiar with the S500

KAC

[Harold_L]

Thanks, Kenny and Jaypie, for the pregnant questions. This is a hand-held shot. One of the reasons I bought the S500 elph was its pocket size - it was great to use on our recent eastern Europe trip. But I will certainly try using a tripod to see if I am not holding the camera steady enough. Of course, the camera is largely automatic in what it does. And the built-in 7.4 to 22.2 mm focal length lens is what you get. I usually shoot with some telephoto. It did occur to me last night that I do have control over the ISO, which is now set at 50. If I boost that to say 100, I should ask the lens for a smaller aperture, which might help the resolution.(But I don't know if the camera will just change the exposure time.)

As far as processing, I use Picture Window Pro 3.5. For this image, I sharpened and slightly brightened the image, as I recall.

I appreciate your concerns.

Harold

[kenyc]

Cool. Thanks for the info, Yeah I'd definitely suggest shooting at 100 (or higher) and going for the smaller aperature, that will give you greater depth of field.

KAC