Verdant Macatawa Marshes

Joashots

Springtime showers feed the lush grass around small marshland ponds, here in Ottawa County MI
When the clouds pass on, the air is clean and still for the setting sun's parting glow.
On a walk yesterday , I even spotted a white Trillium poking out through the remains of some fallen logs. Once abundant, these are quickly vanishing from the countryside.

Thanks for looking!

Alpha_Plus

Beautiful, I love the second one! The colours are so vivid - HDR / blending i presume?

Wicked_Dark

the light was sweet huh? You've rendered it well and I like the compositions you chose, too.

Joashots

Thanks for the comments guys, we had some clear days this week, but my boots were caked in mud- ankle deep in some places.

Karl, these were all single eposure- I used a rev. 3 stop grad in the second one plus a soft 2 stop held further down (about halfway) to 'enhance' the lightness of the foreground that I had exposed for.

If you look carefully, there's a beaver making a bow wave about 2/3rds down the creek- swam all the way down to see what I was up to- bold little critter! I kept this shot because he hadn't disturbed the reflection yet...

CWSkopec

Gorgeous shots, Joash!

The colors in #3 are pure sweetness!

jpc

Love the grass in the foreground on #3. Great shot.

Alpha_Plus

Joashots wrote: »

Karl, these were all single eposure- I used a rev. 3 stop grad in the second one plus a soft 2 stop held further down (about halfway) to 'enhance' the lightness of the foreground that I had exposed for.

Excuse my question, but i'm not 100% on par with all the filters etc. What do you mean by the 'rev'? and 'held further down'? — And just to make sure, a 3 stop filter is equivalent of closing the aperture 3 stops?

Thanks.

Joashots

No worries Karl- the reference was to a Neutral Density graduated filter. I use these mainly to help balance out the difference in brightness in a scene- typically between the sky and foreground.
A lot of these effects are easily reproduced and probably much more flexible in PS, from what I've seen and heard. And of course, bracketing and blending opens up a whole new world.

The reverse grad has a hard edge, in this case a 3 stop (equivalent exposure stops) that starts abruptly in the middle but tapers to a 1 or 2 stop at the top of the filter. Helps keep the sky more realistic appearing, since that is quite often the natural gradient, as you look higher up from the horizon- just my opinion , and I am FAR, FAR from being an expert. Just enjoying the journey..
More here. on the type I use.

Occasionaly I will sandwich a second grad if the scene requires it, or to get creative- In this case I help up another 2 stop (soft) grad, positioned lower in the frame, you can actually make out the transition zone in that second shot about half way along the grass on the right. Again, this is just one way of skinning a cat- and I still seem to get some sort of perverse satisfaction from capturing as much as I can on that LCD, so it's grad filters for now...BTW Live View is indispensible when using grads.

Hope my ramblings made some sense- cheers