Here’s some of my new landscape photography work from an early morning walk along the Kennet and Avon Canal (3rd of February 2015). I woke up to snow, frost and great cloud formations so I decided it was the perfect time for a dog walk with Sammy (my four legged friend) and my camera
All images were shot RAW (maximum quality) using small aperture’s of around f11 – f16. Due to hand held shooting I used a slightly faster ISO of around 200 which gave me shutter speeds of 1/60 – 1/125. Normally I would rather use a tripod because there’s something about hand held photography that always feels too rushed and no matter how hard you try to support the camera and even hold your breath it’s impossible to remove all camera shake. Ideally I like to take my time making sure horizon lines and camera angles are correct. Having some interesting features in the Nikon D810 really allows me to make sure I’m getting straight lines throughout my composition. However, looking at the full resolution images in Photoshop they’re still incredibly sharp and I’m certainly tempted to print a couple out onto A3+ paper. It’’s actually hard to imagine how much sharper the images would be using a tripod and mirror locked-up? Probably not that much!
The snow had settled really well. Some parts of the canal had even frosted over completely. The Canal is only about a 3min walk from where I live and it was great to see the landscape covered in clean snow and frost. I shot some images into the sunrise and the superb dynamic range of the D810 allows me to capture plenty of shadow and highlight detail. I just couldn’t wait to get the images home and into the computer. As soon as I got home I poured myself a cup of strong coffee, warmed up my frozen hands and I jumped straight into the digital darkroom.
I really enjoyed photographing these images and it was certainly a perfect morning for me. I’ve always shot most of my portfolio in the studio (under artificial lighting) but with a good quality wide angled FX lens (Nikon) it’s almost impossible to ignore opportunities like this to take Sammy (my dog) for a walk whilst snapping away at beautiful nature along the way
