Willow at night

[The Caretaker]

This is of a giant willow tree in the grounds of where I live and work, covered in thick ice and snow


and looks possibly even better in B/W

Canon EOS 7D
f/16
Exposure time 2sec
iso 6400
focal length 26mm

[Donald]

Matt

The B & W doesn't work for me. I'm not sure you had a broad enough range of tone for it to work well as a B & W. Are you sure you've got the right EXIF information posted at the bottom? The EXIF from the image says f7.1, 8secs, ISO 800, Focal length 17mm

As for the colour image - I see you shot this with an ISO of 6400 at 1/4s @ f4. I think all these elements were designed to give you a pretty big challenge in terms of noise. Would I be right in guessing that you had to do a lot in post-processing to get the image that you posted? I think the result of that has been to give you all the artifacts that can be seen where the light is illuminating the sky area to the left of the tree.

I think it maybe needed a smaller aperture, lower ISO and much, much longer shutter speed. The latter element would, of course, require a flat calm evening so that you didn't get motion blur.

[The Caretaker]

Well there you go you have discovered me! I'm a Fraud I can sometimes take good photo's but I don't what I'm doing but I'm learning

[Donald]

Well there you go you have discovered me! I'm a Fraud I can sometimes take good photo's but I don't what I'm doing but I'm learning

Matt

Not quite sure your position here. If you don't want any constructive comment and criticism on your posted images, it might be worth making that clear in your posts.

[The Caretaker]

No It's ok Donald I was litterally stating a fact, i'm one of those people thats gulity of saying they are a keen photographer but unforunately i don't know a 1/4 as much as i should and hence the ridiculous mistakes that i made in taking those shots I tend to take some good shots but don't always get the technical bits right hence making myself look a bit stupid when showing them to my peers

[Donald]

Matt

No problem. Understand, now, where you were coming from.

As for

... hence making myself look a bit stupid when showing them to my peers ...(

Not at all. That's what learning is about. Did you see Pops' post in this thread where he says, "When you get a perfect picture, you will learn something about photography. When you get a real goof of a shot, you learn even more. Your mistakes are the ones which teach you how to handle the many different conditions you will encounter." So sensible.

[Dave Humphries]

That's what learning is about. Did you see Pops' post in this thread where he says, "When you get a perfect picture, you will learn something about photography. When you get a real goof of a shot, you learn even more. Your mistakes are the ones which teach you how to handle the many different conditions you will encounter." So sensible.

Absolutely, just keep plugging away at it Matt and you will improve.

For me, the first shot is a good composition, but two things detract;
it needs a slight twist clockwise so the willows are hanging down vertically
being colour, the sodium light on the left is quite saturated on the grass
To my mind, this is the shot that would work in B&W I think - or perhaps, leave the colour in the sky, I quite like that

The second shot has two trees; one which is well lit and a bigger one, which is less well lit, so they compete to be the subject of the picture. This one needs a PP straighten even more than the first - or better still, get it right "in camera" - but that is far easier said than done; I still end up straightening over half of mine in PP and I should no better!

Hope that helps,

[LenG]

No It's ok Donald I was litterally stating a fact, i'm one of those people thats gulity of saying they are a keen photographer but unforunately i don't know a 1/4 as much as i should and hence the ridiculous mistakes that i made in taking those shots I tend to take some good shots but don't always get the technical bits right hence making myself look a bit stupid when showing them to my peers

Matt: Don't be so hard on yourself, mate I think you did well in with this image, it just needs different exposure settings. I believe photography is a never-ending study and there is always a learning curve...that's what makes it challenging. Keep at it...don't give up. One of these days you will take that one picture that will make your eyes pop.

*edit*

I hope you don't mind, Matt, but I did some fiddling about with your original color shot. I like your idea of it being B&W.

Here's what I did in CS5:
Converted to 16 bits per channel
Filter -> Smart Sharpen -> Remove Gaussian Blur @ 20% & radius of 2.8px
Image -> Adjustments -> Black & White then added a green filter.
Clone-stamped to get rid of the little bright bits in the background trees just to the left of the willow.

*/edit*

[The Caretaker]

Thanks for your words of encouragement that looks great the tree itself is fantastic and i'm sure i'll get a few more goes at getting it right I like your effort there Len

[CNelson]

Very interesting shot/subject.

Chuck

[LenG]

Thanks for your words of encouragement that looks great the tree itself is fantastic and i'm sure i'll get a few more goes at getting it right I like your effort there Len

You're welcome. Glad to help out, Matt. As Donald said, try a much lower ISO...maybe 400 and a longer shutter time and a smaller aperature. It will give a longer focus, clean up the noise a great deal and give you a better raw image to work with.

[Peter Ryan]

......and i'm sure i'll get a few more goes at getting it right

You have just taken your biggest step in photography. Review and go back and have another go. I often take a shot when I know the lights not right but take it anyway, review, plan and go back when I think the light is right and try again.