Say Goodbye Sun

There isn't much to say about this picture really. I don't get the chance to visit the coast very often so sunset shots over the sea from me are always going to be very rare. This is another shot though from my recent New Forest trip, more specifically, Barton-on-sea on the south coast of the New Forest. This was the place I had in mind when I planned the trip to the New Forest that day and though the sunset wasn't spectacular that evening in terms of colour, I did manage to capture the briefest appearance of the sun through the clouds with this shot. This was honestly the best it got, it's appearance lasted about 10 seconds.

The Sigma 10-20mm lens has gone

Yes it is with some sadness that say I chose to return the Sigma 10-20mm lens I bought recently. In an ideal world I would have swapped it for another copy but that option was not available, so I settled for a refund. My decision was based on the fact that the images I got back were just not what I thought, they were very soft throughout the picture and left me with a lot of work to do in post-processing. As all photographers know, lenses are not cheap and you have to ask yourself, does the lens I bought for £380 really make £380 difference? I'm sorry but I just couldn't agree with that. £380 will get you a nice few days in Venice and that does make a difference. Is it really that different to the 18-105mm lens I already have? Well it is different (the CA is virtually nil) but again not £380 different. And of course the kit lens is very versatile. I do accept that maybe I just got a bad version and as I said, if I could have replaced it I would have, but I couldn't. I still might buy another copy in future to see if there is a difference with another copy, though if not, I will put the money towards some further photographic investment in the future.

The Edge of England

Well part of the edge anyway. England with the rest of the British Isles is entirely surrounded by coastline, and this is one of the most southern parts of it. This is another picture from Barton-on-sea, which is at the south side of the New Forest. It was my first day shooting with my new sigma 10-20mm lens and though I find it quite hard post-processing pictures taken with this lens, it definitely has it's advantages. The HDR's come out really well and the chromatic aberration is almost non-existent. I still find a little soft though, which means I have to do a lot of noise reduction and sharpening. Does anyone else with this lens have that problem?

This was shot towards the end of the day, and by this time I was mainly going for long exposure of the sea. I fortunately managed to combine a long exposure shot with HDR in this picture and even I'm surprised how well it turned out. The final picture is taken from just 2 shots, processed (after photomatix) in Lightroom, Photoshop CS5 (warming filter) and Nik Color Efex Pro 4 (very slight touch to lighten up the rocks and clouds). The noise reduction was done in Topaz Denoise and the sharpening achieved using Unsharp Mask (in Photoshop).