My Backyard Stream @ Night
My Backyard Stream @ Night - 5.10mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 6 seconds
This stream actually runs through my backyard. If we chopped down all those trees in the distance, well, you probably still couldn't see my backyard, but only just I think. This is a part of Alton I don't see very often, which is a shame because it's beautiful. If you drive through Holybourne from Alton, you will find it. It's rather impossible to miss.
I thought I'd look around for something to photograph after work. It was getting dark, and that's just what I was looking for. OK, I was going to need at least a little light too, and a subject. I was on my way to the top of a hill that sort of overlooks the town, when my eyes nearly popped out my head. Slammed on breaks, reversed back over the little bridge, and found what I was looking for. It was pretty dark by the time I took this shot. In fact I remember it was so dark I couldn't see the controls on the back of my Leica D-Lux 4. But don't worry. That's OK. I know my way around the camera pretty well by now. I took this using Manual mode. I spent most of the time before shooting with Aperture Priority mode and I can honestly say that using Manual mode is the way to go.
I spent (read 'wasted') an hour or so of my life pulling this image into PhotoTools Pro and realising that nearly everything I did just made it look unrealistic. So here it is, the RAW file converted to a TIFF after using Camera RAW to try and recover the overexposed sky in the top right corner of the image, and a 20% Super Sharpen with PhotoTools Pro.
I'm really glad I discovered this little spot. I'm sure I'll go back many times in varying weather conditions to experiment.
