Desert Valley – Big Bend National Park, Texas
Copyright © 2011 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture (Av) priority using an EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 23mm, f/16 for 1/40thth of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3.
Click on the image above for a larger version.

Cloudscape – Kingsland, Texas
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 40D set on aperture (Av) priority using an EF 24-105m f/4L IS USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 40mm, f/13 for 1/4th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3.
Click on the image above for a larger version.

A few years ago a friend told me about a great spot for landscape photography hiding in plain sight in the Texas Hill Country. Kingsland is a quiet bedroom community stretching along the shores of the Colorado and Llano Rivers at the point where they merge to form Lake LBJ. It’s a short drive west from Marble Falls on Ranch Road 1431 to a wonderful spot overlooking Packsaddle Mountain to the west.

It takes perseverance to find a good location and a great deal of patience to wait until the light is just right. I find that on almost every photographic outing I’ll waste 20% to 30% of my shots way too early in the evening before the light has had time to saturate and the evening clouds to form.

If you’re anything like me, you want to setup as quickly as possible and start shooting that wonderful location you’ve driven so far to find. Patience you see, does not come naturally to most of us and learning to wait is just not in my Irish nature. But I’m learning and these days I’ll usually pack a light-weight folding chair and a good paperback so that I can sit comfortably while waiting for the light.

Sunsets take time. They begin with a little warmth and glow and slowly evolve into deeply saturated reds, yellows and blues. After 30 – 40 minutes more they deepen to ambers, indigos and violets and sometimes when the atmosphere is just right they sky may begin to glow a rich, deep purple before turning to true black.

So the next time you’re out looking for some great sunset shots, remember to be patient. Take one or two shots every tens minutes or so and plan to stay put for at least two hours. Let nature take it’s course and enjoy the wonderful show.

Life is too short!

We have found a few great spots around Texas where you may want to take part in this Holiday tradition!

Grapevine, TX ~ The Christmas Capital of Texas: Celebrate Christmas with Lights in Grapevine. Check out their Calendar of Events for Dates, Times, & Locations.

Tyler, TX ~ Santa Land, The Magic Forest: Drive through Santa Land’s 24 acres of unforgettable adventure designed especially for the entire family.

Frisco, TX ~ Christmas In The Square: The largest choreographed holiday lights and music show in Texas returns for the 6th year.

College Station, TX ~ Santa’s Wonderland: A Texas Christmas Experience featuring millions of Christmas lights.

San Antonio, TX ~ The Riverwalk: Ford Caroling Nights with Santa. Enjoy a magical evening on the River Walk with Luminaries, Christmas Lights and Carolers singing to everyone.

Christmas All Around Texas Gift Basket

We hope one of those great Christmas displays works for you! Complete your perfect evening by coming home after a fun outing to enjoy all the delicious treats from our Christmas All Around Texas Basket! Full of our Texas-shaped Chips, Salsa, Snowman Popcorn, Reindeer Noses (cherry sours!), Holiday Hot Cocoa, and more!

There are so many ways to enjoy the season, ya’ll! We hope we can help make it even better! Come visit us at www.texastreats.com for more Holiday baskets and great gift ideas!

We also invite you to think a little inside the box of history and snack on these delicious Alamo Cookies! What better way to celebrate historical milestones than by eating an adorable replication of them – in buttery form! These sweet cookies are a very popular item and sure to please anyone – history buff or not!

“Remember the Alamo!” was the battle cry of a new breed of settlers in search of independence. Alamo Cookies – delicious Shortbread cookies in Texas shapes capture that pioneer spirit.
Alamo Cookies are light bite-sized sugar cookies which, like their namesake, never surrender when it comes to good taste!  Alamo Cookies take their shape from the symbols reminding us most of the Lone Star State — a boot, a star, a cowboy hat, the great State of Texas and the never-to-be-forgotten Alamo!

Enjoy a taste of the spirit of Texas!

Also available with matching curling ribbons tied onto the handle for a special presentation.

Take the time to celebrate The Alamo by tasting the memories in cookie form! For easy ordering, click here!

Check out our other two flavors of Texan Cookies: Cowtown Cookies and Wild West Cookies.

For more great gift ideas and yummy treats, visit www.texastreats.com

It’s raining here in Texas again so I thought I’d repost a short article from another, much wetter year just to get in the mood.

Sometimes it’s a little tough expressing relative size in a photograph. After all, it’s only a two dimensional representation of a three-dimensional subject. In landscape photography this can be especially difficult since the camera tends to “compress” the image perspective somewhat.

Runoff – Austin, Texas
Copyright © 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on manual (M) using an EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod-mounted. The exposure was taken at 85mm, f/22 for 1/13th of a second at ISO 50. All post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3 Beta. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Take the shot above for example. Can you tell how large the waterfalls and surrounding rocks really are? Can you tell how close they are to you? Me neither! Which is why it’s always a good idea to add some visual clue to your landscape images to help viewers judge the size of your subject and distance the subject is from the viewer. In some cases a simple foreground object can be used to add this sense of “perspective”. In others it’s simply best to add people in your landscape images as shown below. There’s nothing better to add a sense of relative size than having a person in your shot.

(And yes, those folks were mighty close to the slippery edge out there. You should have seen me & my tripod )

We thank thee Oh Lord for the gift of life, of light and of much needed rain. Amen!

Inclement Weather – Sugar Land, Texas
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture (Av) priority using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 28mm, f/11 for 1/125th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer filter and 2-stop graduated neutral density filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3.
Click on the image above for a larger version.

So what are you waiting for this evening? Get out of that chair and go grab some photons.

Desert Sunset – Big Bend National Park, Texas
Copyright © 2011 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture (Av) priority using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 47mm, f/14 for 1/8th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3 and Adobe Photoshop CS5.
Click on the image above for a larger version.

Sugar Creek Country Club Jones #1 – Sugar Land, Texas
Copyright © 2011 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture (Av) priority using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 50mm, f/16 for 1/15th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3.
Click on the image above for a larger version.

Sugar Creek Country Club Jones #3 – Sugar Land, Texas
Copyright © 2011 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture (Av) priority using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 28mm, f/16 for 1/13th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3.
Click on the image above for a larger version.

Lake LBJ Overlook – Kingsland, Texas
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture (Av) priority using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 32mm, f/11 for 1/6th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer and two-stop, soft graduated neutral density filter. Post capture processing was done entirely in Adobe’s Lightroom 3.

Click on the image above for a larger version.

As many of you know this spring’s Texas Landscape Safari is scheduled for later next month (April 25th – 28th, 2011) and I thought I’d help folks get ready by discussing some “tools of the trade” used by every landscape photographer. So over the next three weeks I’ll be posting images of the gear I use along with some shots made possible by this gear. Honestly, it’s just plain fun to “geek out” over gear every once in a while.

The single most important piece of photographic gear you’ll ever purchase (after your camera and lens) is a set of light-weight, good quality tripod legs. A good tripod can make the difference between a shot that “looks” sharp on the camera’s LCD and one that “is” tack sharp when printed at 24″ × 36″. Remember, the number one cause of soft images isn’t poor focus, it’s camera movement.

Click on the image above and look at the crisp detail of the rocks and trees compared to the silky smooth look of the water. Getting this type of shot required a 1/6th second exposure in the late evening and the slightest camera movement would have completely ruined the image.

Good quality tripod legs are not cheap and you can expect to pay somewhere between $300 – $800 (USD) depending upon the materials of construction, size and weight. I currently use two different set of tripod legs these days; one for studio & on-location work (Gitzo GT2541 Mountaineer) and one for hiking (Gitzo GT1541T Traveller). Both are constructed from carbon fiber making them very light-weight but extremely strong and durable.

I’m an unabashed believer in Gitzo tripods (probably the only French product I’ve ever bought) and highly recommend them to any photographer. Both of my tripod legs have seen the extremes of heat, humidity, mud, sand, gravel and just plain dirt and they work as well now as the first day I bought them. You may buy four or five cameras over your lifetime as a landscape photographer but you’ll only need one Gitzo tripod!

So much for global “warming”.

BTW – Click on the image below for a really big version that’s works perfectly as your computer background or desktop image. Think warm thoughts!

Autumn Grass – Fayetteville, Texas
Copyright © 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture (Av) priority using a TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 24mm, f/16 for 1/30th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray warming polarizer. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3.

Click on the image above for a larger version.

Howdy, y’all! I found the subject for today’s Texas Tidbits like I find many of the posts for this blog – just goofin’ around on the internet. But this post is unique. It’s more about audio than the written word. let me ‘splain.
I am a Native Texan and I have traveled to thousands of nooks and crannies all over the state. I have seen some of the weirdest names of towns you can imagine – Cut and Shoot, Gun Barrel City and Uncertain to name a few. I have also been to places where the name is pronounced completely different than the way it is spelled. Simple names like Colorado City. Easy, right? Not so fast there, diction breath. The correct (at least to the locals) way to pronounce Colorado City is Colla-ray-da City. Weird, huh? What about some other towns in Texas that present a similar dilemma? Mexia? Miami? Gruene? I am not going to give you those pronunciations. I ain’t gonna leave you hangin’ either.

This is where my Accidental Internet Discovery of the Day comes in. I found a site called Texas Tripper that has a bunch helpful information about Texas. It also has a pronunciation guide to help even the most seasoned Texan avoid those spoken faux pas. Click on the link and scroll down till you see the alphabet written in red letters. Click on a letter and a list of Texas towns whose name begins with that letter will be displayed. Then just hit the “play” button on the media player and a man’s voice will give you the correct way to pronounce that city’s name. I think it’s pretty cool and as smart as I thought I was, I ain’t. Give it a go and see how well you do and let me know in the comment section.

Good luck and I’ll see you in Palacios !

Howdy, y’all! I found the subject for today’s Texas Tidbits like I find many of the posts for this blog – just goofin’ around on the internet. But this post is unique. It’s more about audio than the written word. let me ‘splain.
I am a Native Texan and I have traveled to thousands of nooks and crannies all over the state. I have seen some of the weirdest names of towns you can imagine – Cut and Shoot, Gun Barrel City and Uncertain to name a few. I have also been to places where the name is pronounced completely different than the way it is spelled. Simple names like Colorado City. Easy, right? Not so fast there, diction breath. The correct (at least to the locals) way to pronounce Colorado City is Colla-ray-da City. Weird, huh? What about some other towns in Texas that present a similar dilemma? Mexia? Miami? Gruene? I am not going to give you those pronunciations. I ain’t gonna leave you hangin’ either.

This is where my Accidental Internet Discovery of the Day comes in. I found a site called Texas Tripper that has a bunch helpful information about Texas. It also has a pronunciation guide to help even the most seasoned Texan avoid those spoken faux pas. Click on the link and scroll down till you see the alphabet written in red letters. Click on a letter and a list of Texas towns whose name begins with that letter will be displayed. Then just hit the “play” button on the media player and a man’s voice will give you the correct way to pronounce that city’s name. I think it’s pretty cool and as smart as I thought I was, I ain’t. Give it a go and see how well you do and let me know in the comment section.

Good luck and I’ll see you in Palacios !

Hoop and Holler, Ding Dong or Muleshoe!    Only in Texas!!!

We live in a world that moves at an incredible pace most days. We are bombarded with more information than our brains can actually process, digest and understand. We rush to get to work, we rush through our day and we rush home in the evenings. We fall dead asleep and do it all over again the next day. We live our lives as if time has no meaning! Let me say that again. We live our lives as if time has no meaning!

But time does have meaning and our time here on this planet is all too short. Let me explain.

I receive hundreds of emails and thousands of blog comments each year asking advice on this camera or that filter or on some technique that will add impact to their images. While I’m always happy to help (I do answer every email personally), I rarely see most people following through with their dreams to become better photographers. It’s as if many folks are waiting for permission to live their lives to the fullest and pursue their dreams.

Those of you that have followed my blog for some time probably know that in March 2007 I came down with an inexplicable and still undiagnosed neurological disorder that left me in almost constant pain with muscle spasms and cramps in my lower back and legs. I spent the better part of a year in and out of the hospital, seeing specialists and being tested for everything from AIDS to Cancer to MS. I’ve had multiple MRIs, CT scans, X-rays, ultrasounds, myelograms and neurological tests. My condition is still undiagnosed, but I do have medication to help control the muscle spasms and pain. It has taken me the better part of three years to recover my strength and self confidence.

Before all this occurred I lived my life as if time had no meaning. As if I had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted. I had no great ambition in life (other than to support my family and raise my children) and no real goals beyond getting my golf handicap down to single digits. It never occurred to me that my time here was limited and if I wanted to leave something meaningful behind, I’d better get off my butt and start really living.

Without sounding like a Baptist preacher let me explain what I’ve learned. LIFE is a gift from GOD. It is finite and final. We have only so much time to grow, learn, understand, teach and pray before we pass through this plane of existence and on to the next. And we have no idea how short or long our life may be! None. Nada. No Idea.

LIFE IS TOO SHORT not to slow down and enjoy its simple pleasures like photographing a solitary flower in the warm sunshine. It’s too short to sit inside reading photography books, magazines and blog posts every night and weekend instead of getting out there to shoot.

LIFE WAS MEANT TO BE LIVED. It’s a gritty, scary and often exhausting “full-contact” sport where everyone is their own quarterback and the two-minute warning has just sounded.

LIFE WAS MEANT TO HAVE MEANING. Millions die each year without leaving behind a meaningful legacy to inspire the next generation. Be a part of the small minority that does.

Yellow – Llano, Texas
Copyright © 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 105mm, f/4 for 1/1250th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer. All post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Here’s the Good News . . .

LIFE BEGINS ANEW EACH MORNING. Get up early to shoot a sunrise. Stay up late to shoot a sunset. Carry a camera with you everywhere you go. If something looks interesting to you, take the shot. If nothing looks interesting to you, then you’re not really looking are you?

LIFE CAN SLOW DOWN. It’s all up to you. You can rush through your life and be miserable or you can slow things down to enjoy life’s simple pleasures. Go sit on a park bench during lunch and slowly look around you. Look for something interesting and take the shot!

LIFE REQUIRES COURAGE (but what have you got to lose?). Mix things up a little. If you shoot predominantly landscape images, shoot some portraits. Have the courage to shoot a stranger. Be a generalist. Specialization is for insects.

LIFE IS TOO SHORT. Don’t wait another instant. Pursue your photographic dreams with determination. Make it happen! But don’t forget to enjoy your life. The journey through life is why we are here!

Like most small towns in east and central Texas, Fayetteville boasts a rich history which began in the 1820′s as the area was settled by members of Stephen F. Austin’s colony. In the late 1830′s through 1850′s the town was populated by German and Czech immigrants and anyone eating lunch or dinner in town can attest to their continuing influence.

On the second Saturday of each month in the summer, the Texas Pickin’ Park folks come from all over the area to join in impromptu jam sessions. As you can see, there was some great music and wonderful photographic opportunities.

Serious Pickin – Fayetteville, Texas
Copyright © 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens hand-held. The exposure was taken at 200mm, f/7.1 for 1/125th of a second at ISO 200 using a Singh-Ray warming circular polarizer. All post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Strumming – Fayetteville, Texas
Copyright © 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens hand-held. The exposure was taken at 200mm, f/6.3 for 1/250th of a second at ISO 800 using a Singh-Ray warming circular polarizer. All post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3. Click on the image above for a larger version.

More Pickin – Fayetteville, Texas
Copyright © 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens hand-held. The exposure was taken at 200mm, f/6.3 for 1/80th of a second at ISO 200 using a Singh-Ray warming circular polarizer. All post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Oldest Presbyterian Church in Texas
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM tripod-mounted with a Singh-Ray LB Warming circular polarizer filter attached. The exposure was taken at 24mm, f/13 for 1/80th of a second at ISO 100 on Lexar Professional digital film. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4 using Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro filter. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Here’s what the raw file looked like in Lightroom 2 before any processing was done. Not a bad color image but fairly bland given the cloudless sky and dry conditions. Converting this image into black & white added the extra contrast that was needed to give the image a little more vibrance and “pop”.

One thing to keep in mind when converting to black & white using any technique is noise. I always run Lightroom’s or Dfine’s noise reduction before the black & white conversion process. This helps eliminate the artifacts that can occur when high contrast images are converted to black & white.

Back in mid-July David wrote a post entitled Sens(or) and Sensibility where he postulated; 1) that sensor size really does matter in so many ways, but especially to depth of field and 2) to forget equivalency or more simply put, to forget the field of view crop factor between a full frame sensor and an APS-C size sensor. The ensuing comment war went on for over sixty comments all very passionately discussing the various theories of magnification, field of view, focal length and perspective.

Having used the 5DII for a few outings now I can assure you in no uncertain terms, the differences between a full frame sensor and an APS-C size sensor are huge and the difference between Canon’s xD line and xxD line are very significant. I’ll leave the technical discussions of FOVCF to the experts however.

The image below was taken late Sunday afternoon when it “looked” like a thunderstorm was finally going to end our drought here in southeast Texas (unfortunately it never rained here in Sugar Land). I looked outside, saw the wonderful clouds forming and grabbed my 5DII for a few quick exposures at the sugar mill, a site I’ve photographed several times in the past. I took several exposures of this scene using a single AF point positioned over the silos in the frame using apertures from f/5.6 to f/22. I wanted to see what the minimum aperture would be required to obtain enough depth of field to ensure the entire image was sharp. Boy was I in for a surprise.

Storm at the Sugar Mill
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM tripod-mounted with a B&W circular polarizer attached. The exposure was taken at 24mm, f/11 for 1/40th of a second at ISO 100 on Lexar Professional digital film. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Using either of my 40D or 50D bodies I could have easily gotten away with any aperture greater than f/5.6 but with the 5DII even f/8 provided too narrow a depth of field and I ended up using f/11. I half expected this since I’d seen the same result in a previous post showing the water barrel and now started to understand just how different the depth of field of these two sensors really was. To use this camera effectively for landscape shots I would need to pay careful attention to both focus and aperture.

The other differences that hit me right away were the incredible detail provided by the 5DII and more importantly, the almost total lack of noise in my images. Normally I run each image through Nik Software’s Dfine 2.0 noise reduction filter just to see if any areas need a little noise reduction. On my 50D this was a necessity for almost any high contrast or high ISO image. On the 5DII, Dfine could fine almost no noise at all, not even in the darkest shadow areas and blue sky.

So here’s the good news and the bad news for crop body shooters. In my unscientific opinion, the difference between using a full frame sensor and an APS-C sensor is very real in terms of depth of field, although this may or may not be an advantage to a landscape photographer. I also feel the image quality of a full frame sensor is worth every penny of the 2x cost differential. I won’t speak about field of view or crop factors since those discussions are way over my head, but I will say this; my EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM never looked anywhere this wide or this sharp on my 40D or 50D bodies. I took this shot at 24mm, standing at exactly the same spot as I’ve done in the past with my 50D and EF-S 10-22mm lens. And this shot looks much, MUCH wider and much less distorted. That’s the good news.

Now here’s the bad news. Once you see the results of an average shot taken with a full frame sensor you’ll never want to shoot with a crop body again. I know I didn’t after renting a 5D and trying it out a few months ago. Fortunately the price of full frame DSLRs should begin to fall as each manufacturer reports significant declines in their quarterly earnings and becomes desperate for sales revenue. And as each manufacturer comes out with another new FF model, the prices for discontinued full frame models like the original 5D becomes more palatable. I hate to sound like a fanboy convert but the lure of the full frame sensor is very strong and for good reasons. I hate to say it but I really believe the full frame sensor will allow you to dramatically improve your photography and after all, isn’t that what we all aspire to?

My recommendation is simple. If you’re in the market for a new DSLR of any brand, rent one with a full frame sensor for a week. Shoot almost any subject with your current DSLR and the full frame DSLR you’ve rented. Look at the RAW files from both cameras at 100% crop and I promise you, you’ll be astonished by the difference.

You can go just about anywhere in Columbus, Texas on a late Sunday evening, and setup a tripod in the middle of the empty street to capture some beautiful architecture. Standing there it’s easy to feel your cares fall away and be transported back to simpler, less hectic place and time.

Stafford Bank in Columbus, Texas
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 40D set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 18mm, f/13 for 1/40th of a second at ISO 200 on Sandisk digital film. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 using Nik’s Color Efex Pro plug-in. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Straight and Narrow
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 50D set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM tripod-mounted. The exposure was taken at 11mm, f/8 for 1/90th of a second at ISO 100 on Lexar Professional digital film. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 using Nik Software’s Dfine and Sharpener Pro filters. Click on the image above for a larger version.

So here’s another shot taken last weekend. Somewhat different from my usual landscape and wildlife shots. Just having fun playing with a new lens and looking for something to catch my eye. No intent. Just a feeling.

Sideways
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 40D set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 28mm f/1.8 USM hand-held. The exposure was taken at 28mm, f/4 for 1/750th of a second at ISO 200 on Lexar Professional digital film. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 using Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro plug-in for Lightroom. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Table for Two
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 40D set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 28mm f/1.8 USM hand-held. The exposure was taken at 28mm, f/8 for 1/500th of a second at ISO 200 on Lexar Professional digital film. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 using Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro plug-in for Lightroom. Click on the image above for a larger version.

I wanted another image of this room but this time facing directly at the window. Just like the last shot, I wanted a dreamy, high-key type of exposure with the light diffused by the window and shear drapes. I also wanted the rich texture of the wood floor and details of the hats and chest of drawers to be clearly defined. Talk about a high contrast scene.

One way of going about this shot would have been to bracket a few exposures and process the image using an HDR program like Photomatix. But I wanted to see if I could meter off the floor and not completely blow out the window’s highlights. I finished this off in Photoshop Elements using Nik’s “Glamor Glow” filter to add some warmth to this high-key image.

Back Light
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 50D set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM hand-held. The exposure was taken at 32mm, f/6.7 for 1/60th of a second at ISO 100 on Lexar Professional UDMA digital film. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 and Photoshop Elements using Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro filters. Click on the image above for a larger version.

I’m somewhat of a history buff and love exploring the various historic sites in East and Central Texas. When I approached this bedroom in the 1830′s Barrington farm house, I knew I wanted to achieve a dreamy kind of soft focus look using the diffuse light streaming through this antique window. I knew that metering off the blanket chest would bring back some detail into the room but blow out the highlights in the window. So I ignored the “blinkies” and took a few exposures, adjusting the exposure compensation to obtain a good balance of light and detail. I finished the image using Nik’s “Classic Soft Focus” filter in Photoshop Elements to give it that dreamy, high-key look.

Window Light
Copyright © 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 50D set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM hand-held. The exposure was taken at 35mm, f/5.6 for 1/60th of a second with + 1EV of exposure compensation dialed in. Shot at ISO 100 on Lexar Professional UDMA digital film. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 and Photoshop Elements using Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro filters. Click on the image above for a larger version.
 
BTW – For those of you that still think the EOS 50D can’t handle low light situations without creating noise, do a little pixel peeping in the shadow areas of this image. Go ahead, I dare you!