Can anyone guess what this is?
Just off the square pictured here, we came across this alleyway. I thought the peeling paint would look particularly interesting if I could work a lot of detail into the scene.
I’ve lodged my claim for my camera equipment so hopefully I will be able to replace my gear soon. I’m looking at buying a 5d Mk III. It’s the next evolution of the 5d and it looks like they’ve made some significant improvements. They’ve bumped the frames per seconds up and improved the auto-focus system. These were the key benefits of having a Canon 7d alongside my 5d Mk II. Now I don’t think I’ll need it and am considering buying the new mirrorless camera offered by Canon. It’s able to use all the Canon lenses via an adapter and it’s smaller size would allow me to keep a camera on me all the time when I’m traveling. I’m just trying to find examples of photos taken with it to make my mind up!
Sheep in Iceland
On our first night in Iceland we stayed in a little guesthouse near the airport. The next morning, the owner gave us a lift back to the airport to pick up our Jeep. He had one piece of advice for us. In summer, the sheep are allowed to roam free in Iceland and would be all over the roads. Further, if we saw a mommy sheep and a lamb on opposite sides of the road we should be very careful because when the lambs get scared they’ll run straight to their mother no matter what. This piece of advice came in handy on a fair few occasions. It was really remarkable just how many sheep there were about, just roaming free. We spent a lot of time wondering how they round them back up. We asked a few people, and got all different answers, none of which really seemed particularly convincing.
Today’s Photo: Sheep on the Mountain
These guys didn’t cause us a problem, they were a safe distance from the road. This photo was taken on our first full night in Iceland, in the Westfjords. I only shot 3 exposures on this one as the dynamic range in the scene did not require the 7 exposures I used to default to. I’ve gotten much better at reading a scene and being able to tell if I can get away with 3 exposures or if I need more. I still recommend that if you’re new to HDR or a little unsure about the scene you should shoot as many bracketed images as you can. If you get home and realize you’ve got more than you need you don’t have to use all of them. If you don’t have enough range in your images chances are you won’t be able to produce the results you want.
The original plan, when starting this site, was to not include any pre-HDR photos. I’ve changed my mind. My trip to Romania inspired me to invest more in my camera equipment and I like a lot of the pictures I took there. Today’s photo was taken on the way down a mountain headed toward 7 Ladder Gorge with my old Canon Rebel. Topaz Adjust has allowed me to recover some of the details in the shadows and a few extra tweaks (including applying Unsharp Mask, which I never used to use) have allowed me to improve this photo a bit form the original. Going forward, I’ll release a few more of my older pictures every once in a while.