It has been a long time my friends and travelling has me returned to London, ON just in time for the fall season. Now that I am settled in to my new place I can dig out my camera gear more often and head out exploring.

First trip for me this time was a place called Kilally Valley Park. I made my way down away from the bicycle path down to a beaten path running along the river’s edge. I used my kit lens for a few HDR shots setting my camera to auto bracketing at 1 stop either side of my exposure. The results weren’t too bad but after I got home I felt I could have done better. HDR is still very new to me.

While setup shooting at the water’s edge a cute couple came down to the same secluded spot. As they rocked out a few selfie’s I offered to help them out with a few shots if they waited around while I switched my gear up. I packed on the Tamron 70-200m f2.8 G2 and ran away to get them in frame. I would have loved to changed my plans and tagged along with them to shoot more fall portraits but I don’t think they were looking or planning on a third wheel for the day.

Looking at the photos now I want to go back and play a bit more in Lightroom to see what I can do to improve the background which has the highlights a little blown out since I was exposing for the couple.

*Update 17 Oct 2018 = I went back for a simple touch up with radiant filters to bring the background down in highlights and get more color and contrast in the foliage on the ground at the feet. Here are the new edits. I’m leaving the old ones up for comparison.

Shifting forward a week and I was out again but this time at Kains woods. I’ll jump in here and say I really bugged myself this day! I set up my gear for the first shot with a level tripod, remote shutter in hand and bracketing setup and clicked the remote. The camera however DID NOT CLICK! Instead I was greeted with an “SD Card not inserted” error message. Turns out I had left my SD card home in the laptop after developing the last set of pictures last night. Grumpily I packed everything up and drove home 25 mins to pick up my SD card and then turned around to come back to my shoot. I felt a little irritated with myself!

Kains woods ended up being pretty neat. There is a well maintained trail and also a path that is barely visible and winds through the forest.I took a trek through parts of both and took a different approach to my HDR. This time instead of bracketing for 1 stop either side of my exposure I added in an extra set at 2 stops off plus and minus. This gave me 5 photos to work with in post processing. I feel it was a smart move and that my HDR improved with it.

I was looking for a fall scene along the waters edge and I never really found a location that said “this is the shot” to me. I did have fun with the practice and would love to go back again and enjoy it for the walk without the focus on the photos. A portrait shoot would work well there as well with people comfortable hiking a bit.

I had my first real annoyance with flare in an image also. One shot I had been looking forward too didn’t turn out and I have no idea how to fix it. Here is the ugly photo flare I ended up with.

My last photo on the way out to my car was of the sun beginning to set behind the trees. In order to ensure I had as much info as possible I took 3 sets of bracketed photos at 3 different starting exposure points totaling 9 photos with a lot of photo information for post processing. I felt the shots turned out well enough and am excited to practice these techniques more in the future. HDR and bracketing has really made scenic photography a lot more interesting to me!