Vincent Grafhorst
05-25-2008, 11:50 PM
One of the highlights of our recent trip to Madagascar was the Tsingy de Bamaraha National Park. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is truly one of the wonders of Madagascar. It can be described as a forest of limestone rock pinnacles with breathtaking and unique scenery.
My mind was set on photographing the sun rising over this forest of rock needles. To achieve that we had to leave at 4 o'clock in the morning, drive a horrible dirt road in thick fog and hike across the surroundings dark forests and climb these steep and sharp rocks up to a view point, but it was all worth it!
However, since the dawn was not the most spectacular this morning I decided to make a feature of the sun peeping over these rocks. As we all know shooting into the sun create lens flare. Though this is generally regarded as undesirable, it can add to the atmosphere of an image too, if used in an aesthetically pleasing manner that fits the overall scene. This is exactly what I tried to achieve here. Though opinions will differ (and that is what I would like to hear from you), I believe that in this case the lens flare 'makes' the photo (and actually wish for even more flare). Just try to imagine the image without the flare...
Camera Model Canon EOS 40D
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/10, 1/25 and 1/60 (blend of 3 bracketed exposures)
Av( Aperture Value ) 16.0
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation -2/3
Autoexposure Bracketing +/-1 1/3
ISO Speed 200
Lens EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
Focal Length 41.0 mm
Image Size 3888x2592
Image Quality RAW
Flash Off
White Balance Mode Color Temperature(5200K)
AF Mode Manual focusing
Tripod, Remote, Live View (=MLU)
Vincent Grafhorst
www.khwaiphotography.com (http://www.khwaiphotography.com)
vincent@khwaiphotography.com (vincent@khwaiphotography.com)
My mind was set on photographing the sun rising over this forest of rock needles. To achieve that we had to leave at 4 o'clock in the morning, drive a horrible dirt road in thick fog and hike across the surroundings dark forests and climb these steep and sharp rocks up to a view point, but it was all worth it!
However, since the dawn was not the most spectacular this morning I decided to make a feature of the sun peeping over these rocks. As we all know shooting into the sun create lens flare. Though this is generally regarded as undesirable, it can add to the atmosphere of an image too, if used in an aesthetically pleasing manner that fits the overall scene. This is exactly what I tried to achieve here. Though opinions will differ (and that is what I would like to hear from you), I believe that in this case the lens flare 'makes' the photo (and actually wish for even more flare). Just try to imagine the image without the flare...
Camera Model Canon EOS 40D
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/10, 1/25 and 1/60 (blend of 3 bracketed exposures)
Av( Aperture Value ) 16.0
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation -2/3
Autoexposure Bracketing +/-1 1/3
ISO Speed 200
Lens EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
Focal Length 41.0 mm
Image Size 3888x2592
Image Quality RAW
Flash Off
White Balance Mode Color Temperature(5200K)
AF Mode Manual focusing
Tripod, Remote, Live View (=MLU)
Vincent Grafhorst
www.khwaiphotography.com (http://www.khwaiphotography.com)
vincent@khwaiphotography.com (vincent@khwaiphotography.com)