Strangways morning mist

[Paddy (Patrick)]

I've taken my new 100-400L for some morning walks. Unfortunately I've been too early for the light to enable bird photos, but I did catch these shots of the morning mist over the Loddon floodplain. I'm a little unsure which I prefer - I like the stronger focus on the shadows of the tree in the first one, the presence of the line of birds in the second and the foreground texture in the third. I also wonder if I could have got more out of the processing. Suggestions most welcome.

Canon 500D with EF 100-400 f5.6L
ISO 200 F11
DPP for brightness, white balance and saturation, resized using Gimp. #1 at 275mm, #2 at 200mm, #3 at 120mm]

Higher res images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrick_k59/

[Octane (Humayun)]

The first one's the pick of the bunch.

Marvelous light well captured.

H

[Liz]

Beautiful soft colours and lighing Paddy, what a gorgeous morning, though probably pretty chilly.

[suma126 (Shane)]

great shots i like the last one

[niko]

Paddy,

they're wonderful. I love sitting at my place in the evening and watching the mist roll down the hill and eventually cover the entire 20 acres - somehow feels very secure to be wrapped in the mist.

niko

[Paddy (Patrick)]

Thanks everyone. I much appreciate the feedback.

[richardda1st (Richard)]

Hi Paddy
I like the 3rd pic, as you say the foreground, my wife Janine likes the 2nd and my daughter Kelly favored the 1st. We're a mixed bag

Not to sure of this processing you are talking about. I was keen once, way back using a fully manual Pentex (I think). My pleasure was in taking as natural a shot as possible and relying on it's inherent beauty.

Cheers
Richard

[alistairsam]

Hi Patrick,

really nice pics. looks like a painting.
are these shot in sepia tone or is that the natural colour.
i like the second, and I think the third would've been better without the tree on the right, so like the first one, but with just more of the field. just my opinion. but nice work.

[Paddy (Patrick)]

Thanks Richard and Alistair.

Alistair, their not done in sepia, just the automatic white balance and "landscape" style setting in the Canon DPP program.

[Octane (Humayun)]

I'm so pleased to read you using DPP and its in-built presets, Paddy.

Once you get used to it, it's the easiest and simplest way of getting great results. Don't be shy to export the TIFFs into Photoshop or whatever other third party software you may want to use to polish or work on images. But, using DPP as the foundation of your Canon RAW files in my eyes is the absolute best starting point. If you do a search, you can read about my rants re: Adobe Camera RAW and LightRoom.

Big grin.

H

[Paddy (Patrick)]

Thanks H. I started using it after reading your posts and descriptions of what you do and have found it very straightforward. Before that I was just using JPEGs and GIMP. Now I edit in DPP and then save a JPEG for resizing in GIMP or for the occasional contrast mask. I am wondering about whether it's worth investing in Photoshop elements or whether GIMP is comparable. Except it won't edit RAW.

[Visionoz (Bill)]

Paddy

Great looking atmosheric shots in all the 3 pixs - I like them - reminds me of some rustic period in history and all those pixs could be used for a book cover IMHO

Top gun mate!

Cheers
Bill