timeimmortal

This is, I admit, a pretty wacky shot. And I further admit that the chromatic aberration on some of the playground walls is, frankly, horrid.

That said, the shot is, overall, pretty neat, and I thought it worthy of posting. It’s the playground at one of the schools in Vermilion, Alberta, and yes, I was still using the Lensbaby when I took this picture.

Shooting with the Lensbaby is interesting. The camera can meter light through it, but typically tends to want to overexpose a picture; I find I have to dial back the exposure by anywhere from 0.67 to 1 eV, and this often after setting the ISO lower than I normally would for the light (or, in the case of a bright outdoor shot like this, as low as possible).

But even all those adjustments weren’t enough for this shot; with exposure dialed down a full 2 eV (the most I can do with my camera), with the shutter speed set at 1/4000th of a second, and with the ISO set at 100, this shot still came in overexposed, and needed a fair bit of highlight reduction. That said, the reduction worked, and some blue crept back into the sky. I also did as much CA reduction as I could, and desaturated some of the harsher fringing colours. I also fiddled with the contrast a fair bit, and I think that was what ultimately made this into a shot I liked.

~ by Kenneth on June 4, 2008.