Wednesday, December 08, 2010

The Lunchtime Winter Photo Challenge

With it being dark outside work hours, I set about a (slightly extended) lunch-break challenge to go and snap some winter scenes while the weather was nice and in-clement! With the scenic village of Lacock just 5 minutes away, I headed over and did a lap of the area in record time..

First shot was luck, but then you got to be out there to get lucky! A buzzard settled in a snow laden conifer tree as I was walking down the road. Taken at 400mm at ISO1600, I've had to do some fairly heavy noise reduction and cropping, but still a nice blog worthy image I think, if not great technically. ISO1600, 400mm, 1/250s, f/5.6

First landscape style shot was also taken with the zoom lens, a scene that I've driven past many times and thought would make quite a nice composition, looking out over the village cottages and church. To be honest, it has looked better with a bit more fog and snow about, but the snowy trees just about make it wintery enough and the chimney smoke is a nice bonus!
ISO500, 135mm, 1/250s, f/9

Frozen reeds. Taken on tripod at f/22 to smooth out the water and get some motion in the reeds. I almost chose to convert this to black and white, but then changed my mind as I do like the contrast of the warm and cold tones. Foreground levels tweaked. ISO100, Tripod, 16mm, f/22, circular polariser, 1.3sec

One of my favourite bridges in the area, this time photographed surrounded by frozen trees and grasses. Straight from camera. ISO100, Tripod, CircPlrsr, 31mm, f/22, 0.6sec

Followed by a quick drive back to work to defrost.
Overall I am pleased with the results, considering. Just shows what you can capture in such a short period of time. Looking forwards to the next one...

1 comment:

Angela said...

Great pictures. Like you said amazing what can be achieved even in a short space of time if you are able to just get out and about. I headed out with my camera yesterday lunchtime too. I ended up hanging out in with some poor frozen souls in Corsham's churchyards.