Cold and frosty morning

[sandman]

I'm a little worried about letting so many pro's see my inapt pics but i need a little feed back, this was taken on a march morning in essex, south east england. Tell me what you think?. i,ve been taking pictures for over thirty years, but have just gone totally digital.sold my 90x, and f4, and bought the S2 and the pocket sized 6800. I find them great for what i do

[lightwrangler]

This is one situation where auto bracketing is handy. Also you should always check the histogram when you shoot scenes like this. The highlights here are blown out and I would expect them to be as you are shooting into the sun. But I think if you had under exposed a bit and you would have gotten better results. Like transparency film over exposure on digital is not easily recoverable, if at all. Another thing to try is shooting in raw mode since the exposure lattitude is greater than jpeg. However all that being said I like your shot, the long shadows are interesting and the composition is fine too. Keep exploring with the camera, it costs nothing to shoot another frame, it's the best way to learn.

[Tom V]

Sandman,

Your shot is a good example of about the most difficult exposure conditions there are. Shooting into the sun, snow/frost, silohette, and keep some blue in the sky, has got to be an exposure nightmare. Since there is such a large range of brightness values available, it is up to the photographer to choose what is important and what's not.

I think the only harder outdoor shot would be a shot of me skiing uphill into the blinding sun on a snowy day while being presented one of those giant lottery winner checks at night - with my hair blowing in the wind, chasing a moose wearing lipstick (the moose, not me! - that would be too easy!).

Lightwrangler was right about shooting RAW mode for extreme contrast like this. Your shot is not overexposed (depending on personal preference), so it may still be adjusted, if desired, in photoshop to see if there is any more detail available. Maybe the ground could be brighter (without loosing detail)?

Shooting a bracket of exposures might result in many shots that would be acceptable. Darker exposures would have more blue in the sky, lighter exposures might look good too.

What is important is whether or not you like it. Or whether or not someone will pay you money for it.:p

Thanks for sharing.

[sandman]

Thank you tom and lightwrangler ,it was a hand held quick shot taken on the spur of the moment, on a freezing morning about 7.30. i took a lot of pics to try out the camera, it was the first week i got it ,so i was still coming to terms with the controls

Your both right about the exposure ,i find the S2 does underexpose by about a third of a stop .I adjusted it slightly in levels ,so it looked as i rememered it, and applied a small amount of USM, it was shot in jpeg in the 6 mill pixels mode.

Thank you for your comments ,it,s the first time i've shown my pics on the net to be judged, i'll take many more, try to improve , i find digital a lot harder than film for judging exposure correctly but i'll work it out.

Going to canterbury cathedral this weekend ,now there's a challenge for hand held shots in low light ,wish me luck.I'll post one of the best ones
bye for now