For some reason, I found this scene very powerful, and I spent a lot of time trying to capture that feeling with my camera. Unfortunately I think I was only partially successful. In retrospect, a polarizing filter may have helped to cool down the burned-out water reflections. I've had some difficulty with compressing this image, and this is my best effort after a lot of tries. Any suggestions about how to do this more effectively would be appreciated.
Thankyou Kim. Alas, this was taken at my brother-in-law's home in Winnipeg, and I have yet to return. There's nothing much like this in southern Alberta, though my daughter recently bought me a hammock, to try and recreate the moment. So far, no luck. However the shot does recreate the feeling for me, even though most people wonder why. I guess you 'had ta be there'. Lately I have switched to using Photoshop Elements, (from Picture-it), with more success at file compression and color balance.
Yes, in this sunny weather we are now having, this scene looks very inviting. I might have to drive south and have a go at it... *grin* Did you ever try this again with a polarizer? I would love to see any progress that you might have tried, as this has wonderful potential, and I think it's so close right now!
Thankyou for your comments, Artie and Bev. Indeed the hammock did look a little better at 50mm. However there was a tire suspended from a rope just out of the field of view on the left. Unfortunately that tire was visually distracting and it confused and cluttered the scene. I couldn't take it down but I wanted it gone. hence the longer lens and the angle of view. Artie, thankyou for your email regarding file compression. I found those suggestions helpful, especially the suggestion to resharpen the image after compression. My moniter is 1024 X 768 pixels, and this image was the best of multiple tries. With my screen resolution the website allowed me to send this file at 800 pixels width, evidently without recompressing the image. The image looks really bad at 440 pixels width.
I'll leave the technical comments to the pros David. I like the restful feel of this, the hammock looks cool and inviting, in fact I would love to be napping there right now. Very nice.
polarizer is not your answer....hot water is the glare off the lily pads..polarizer would have deepened the greens & blue even more....scene is too contrasty for Velvia...especially if you rate it at 50 iso,a wider latitude film like Astia would have rendered this scene with a bit more smoothness.....also looks like you shot this at around 200 mm as the hamock is a bit too compressed...it needs to be stretched out further with the wider focal length.....
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