I got out early this morning knowing I had to hit the road for my brother's house by noon. The nearby lake had a bit of frost and some beautiful lighting so I walked the park's perimeter when I found some thistle, nearly spent, ready to call it a day.
Canon 40D, 70-200mm f4L
f4 @ 1/800, ISO 200
Manual mode, pattern metering
Handheld, natural early morning light, sunny wb
Processed in ACR & CS4 with small crop, levels and contrast adjustments and a wee bit of cloning
Last edited by Julie Kenward; 11-28-2008 at 11:59 AM.
Hi Julie, nice find! These thistle heads provide lots of interesting details. The morning light is great! Some nits to pick: would have liked a little more DOF (the top 'hairs' seem a little oof), there is a greyish halo around the stem at the bottom (result of cloning?). I think a more contrasting BG would make an even more interesting image.
- Jerry -
Jerry, yes there was a really ugly leaf there and I cloned it out. I tried twice to blend the BG to the stem but I think Dmills has my answer...chop the bottom off and be done with it!
Thanks everyone for your help with this one. I still can't get over what beautiful light I caught on Thanksgiving morning!