Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Matching the Format to the Conditions

Sometimes, all the pieces fall into place. 

I was on vacation two years ago and had an opportunity to ride the Sumpter Valley Railway in eastern Oregon.  It was a cycling vacation, and while I had my DSLR in my luggage, I only had my point and shoot with me when it was time for the train to pull out.

It had been overcast and sloppy wet for nearly the entire riding day, but by the time camp was set, the rain had stopped and the terrain had dried.  But the light was still quite flat.

The files have been languishing on my hard drive almost since they were taken.  The first one showed some promise early on, so I did some preliminary work earlier.  The second was a more recent rediscovery.

Number 19

RunaroundMove

The smaller sensor in the point & shoot allows nearly everything to be in focus at a relatively wide aperture and low ISO (about 4.0 and 125, in these cases).  Selective focus (the kind you get with DSLRs at wide apertures) is great, even impossible to live without in some cases, but now and then foreground to background focus is exactly what’s needed.

Both images are crops from the Panasonic ZS-1.  Photoshop was used for tone control and B/W conversion, but the alterations are to the original files. 

Larger versions are a click away.