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Old Barn in Ashford-in-the-water

Nigel Morton

New member
I hope that this is in the correct section. I was attracted to this old barn due to the colours and shadows. I attempted to use the tree as a frame for the capture. Any comments on how to improve this shot are welcome.

EXIF
Shutter Speed: 1/800
Apperture: f/4.5
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 33.0mm
Lense: Canon 18-55mm

IMG_4913Use600x400.jpg
 
Last edited:

Joel Slack

New member
Hi Nigel,

That is indeed an interesting old barn. That's a tough shot to get (for me anyway) with the DR discrepancies. It looks like maybe the highlights on the side of the barn facing the sun might be a bit blown? I think it would have worked better for me if the back corner of the barn weren't cut off, and if the gate were more level. Maybe if you moved to the right another meter or two?

One of the toughest things for me to accomplish (personally) is to find a scene that really makes me think, "Wow, this is nice," and then I can't manage to bring it across with my camera. Did you bracket the scene? Try multiple levels of exposure and slightly different vantage points? Another suggestion (if you didn't already) would be to make sure you shoot it from a tripod, and stop down the aperture some more so that the far elements are more in focus. I hope I'm not sounding overly critical! That's just my take. But I do love old barns like that, and the mossy roof really adds and element of interest.
 

Nigel Morton

New member
Thanks joel, I still need all the advice that I can get. The reason for the end of the barn being cropped out was because there was a newer building and fence there that detracted fron the scene. If I remember correctly the gate was not level because of the nature of the ground where it is. I will try out your suggestion of stopping down the apperture next time I am using the tripod and taking this type of shot.

Again thanks Joel for taking the time to look at this and to comment and pass on advice. It is greatly appreciated.
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Nigel,

I've straightened it a little, but couldn't too much, since it lost a lot of the tree branch. I've cropped the left hand edge of the barn to remove most of (imho) the distracting branches, and the milk crate. This pulls the gate a bit more central, and gives a stronger diagonal roof/sky tree branch framing. I like the way the branches sort of follow the roof angle. Other folk may have a different opinion. As usual, I messed up the colours a bit, but this is not a very big image to work on, and much of the colour was out of gamma. Strong sunlight/shadows are tricky. I wanted to get the detail of the grass and leaves, which are in shadow, but I couldn't get enough room to manoeuvre, but I am no expert at this. Maybe some one else can do it. If you had shot in raw, much could be improved, and it would repay a bit of time spent on post processing the image.

If you get the chance, set the camera to raw instead of jpeg, fire off a few, select the best one or two, and post here. If you mention the software you can use, I expect some folk will have a go at getting the best from your camera.

IMG_4913Use600x40022.jpg



Best wishes,

Ray
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Stuart,

That's pdg. In particular, I like the darker branches on the lhs, which reduces the need for my cropping, since they sort of follow the roof ridge line there, too, but I think I would try and remove the dark wedge under the eves at the lhs. The grass is about right, and I like the darker sky, but maybe the building end could be darker. It would be nice to enhance the buttress, but it is right at the edge, so I think it may skew the composition too much if made too obvious. At the moment, everything nicely leads to the gate. I don't know if Nigel, can get similar on his presumably larger jpeg.

It's the sort of image you could spend some time with, just tweaking this or that.

Best wishes,

Ray
 

StuartRae

New member
Hi Ray,

It's about as far as one can go with a small 8-bit image. If we had access to the RAW perhaps we could get rid of the blown highlights,,,,,,

Stuart
 

Nigel Morton

New member
Many thanks Stuart and Ray. I can't believe the results you both managed to get from this image. You have both done a great job on this, but I just love the way stuart has brought the detail back in the Shadows on the right.

Unfortunately I did not shoot this is in RAW as I am still shooting in Jpeg and learning to use Gimp for post processing. I have to admit that at the moment I am finding Gimp confusing.

Again, thank you for showing me what can be done with a little time, patience and a lot of expertise, skill and experience.
 

StuartRae

New member
Hi Nigel,

The only expertise and skill I can claim is knowing which tool to use; the software does the rest.

BTW, I like this shot, which is why I posted my version of it. As Ray said, it's a shame the left hand corner has been cut off, but if including it had meant losing the gate it's an acceptable sacrifice.

Regards,

Stuart
 

Nigel Morton

New member
Thanks Stuart,
I an starting to be able to perform basic adjustments in Canons "Digital Photo Professional" Software, but Gimp, which looks as though it allows more post processing to be performed, totally baffles me at the moment.

Again thanks for showing me what can be done.
 
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