Mayfield Lavender farm visit

[Paul Heester]

For my sins I got up very early yesterday morning for a visit to the Mayfield Lavender farm in Banstead for the sunrise. As a bonus I also caught the moon setting when I arrived. So quickly setup camera on tripod with telephoto to catch the below. I tried to bracket the shots but the moon was moving so fast that didnt work. This was one of the underexposed bracketed shots with the foreground lavender exposure increased by 2 stops.

Moonset by Paul Heester, on Flickr

You could say this next shot was inspired by David Candlish's excellent image from a few years ago. I made an effort not to look at that shot before I went but looking at his shot again (forum thread viewtopic.php?f=6&t=170&hilit=mayfield&start=450#p2793) I can see we must have stood in a very similar spot. Like him I was also joined by another tog, who was using flash to get some interesting effects.

The sky was too clear to give much interest and with the dynamic range involved I had to bracket shows and use HDR (Luminance HDR) to get enough detail. It also required PS work to remove contrails, fix vignetting, bit of flare and local curves adjustments. I did also set my alarm this morning with a view to a revisit but the conditions looked exactly the same as yesterday, so decided more sleep was the answer

Mayfield sunrise by Paul Heester, on Flickr

[davidc]

Nicely done

[Nina]

Great shots Paul! The moon set is certainly not a picture everyone is likely to get in that over photographed location. You should enter it into Mayfield photo competition.

[Paul Heester]

Already submitted

Great shots Paul! The moon set is certainly not a picture everyone is likely to get in that over photographed location. You should enter it into Mayfield photo competition.