Reservoir Cows

**Sonsey** · 25-06-2006, 01:27

Well last weekend I managed to get the lend of a Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens from a friend to see how I'd get on with it as I'm wanting to get into the landscape side of photography a good bit more. As you can imagine as soon as it was in my hands it was on the camera and I was out the door to take advantage of the good weather we were having

I took a drive up to the hills just outside of Belfast and as I was heading down the road I came across this lot.

I imediately pulled into the farmer's driveway and got out to take some shots, what I didn't expect was the reception I got when I arrived at the fence... they all promptly squared up to me and started moo'ing their heads off, loud enough to get the farmer out on his porch to see what the hell was going on!

Anyway, once I'd regained my composure, assured the farmer I wasn't some kind of cow wrangler and the cow's themselves had calmed down a bit I managed to grab this shot, hand held - 14mm - f/16 - 1/50sec - ISO 100.

Processing was tough on this one as I had exposed for the sky and didn't use flash, so if anyone wants to have a play with it, please be my guest

P-E · 26-06-2006, 07:54

Love the sky and the positioning of the cows........well spotted

**stepheno** · 26-06-2006, 08:06

Agreed - a super shot. It looks as if it's had a bit of HDR done on it because the tones are very subtle.

regards

northernstar · 27-06-2006, 07:41

That is a great shot - you couldn't have positioned those cows better if you'd tried. I think it's a shot that would benefit from HDR to bring the cows out more as they look a little dark (but that could just be my monitor as everything seems to look dark on it..lol)

Gary Bagshawe · 27-06-2006, 08:39

I had a bit of a play with the levels on this one. Probably over processed now looking at it.

**Sonsey** · 27-06-2006, 19:07

Thanks for the replies folks

For processing I used the 2 exposures from 1 raw file method with a gradient layer mask in Photoshop, then applied some Shadow/Highlight - Hue/Saturation to bring the cows out some more (any brighter and they didn't match the sky anymore)... then a bit of Unsharp Mask and noise reduction afterwards.

Thanks for taking the time to have a play Gary, I think your right, it does look a bit over processed, and allthough I love what you've done with the sky (very mean and moody

) I'm not sure it matches the scene with the cows now, but then that's a matter of taste isn't it?, what do others think?

**Sonsey** · 30-06-2006, 04:34

Ok, just a last update to this...

Had a further play in PS and came up with a result that I'm happy with, mainly just saturation tweeks to get more colour into the sky and cows, what do you think, improvement?... hope so, as it's off to Photobox to come back as a 30in x 20in print

(picture is also posted side by side with the original in the 1st post so you can see a before and after)

***Dave*** · 30-06-2006, 08:39

That's better Sonsey !!! Looks less artificial now.

So when you going to buy the lens

or are you tempted by the Sigma 10-20mm ?

P-E · 30-06-2006, 09:37

Loved the sky before but it's even better now after the tweaks

**Sonsey** · 02-07-2006, 16:49

Thanks very much

It's my birthday in a couple of weeks so I'll get the lens sometime after that (depending on how generous everyone is

), the Sigma 10-20mm certainly does interest me but after playing with the Canon 10-22mm I think I would be happy enough with 17mm at the wide end, so my next purchase could well be the Canon 17-40"L" f/4

***Dave*** · 02-07-2006, 17:23

Did you forget the all important L in that last line

**Sonsey** · 02-07-2006, 18:02

LOL, how careless of me

...sorted now

***Steve*** · 08-07-2006, 16:39

Love the final result mate, have you got the print back from Photobox yet to see it all its glory?