Ominous skies

[Hawk]

Below are few images from october that I took with my NEX-3. It is joy to use this camera with old manual focus lenses, however my A700 still delivers much better quality. I’ll probably go for NEX-5N this spring and looking forward to fully replace DSLR with mirroless in future, but maybe lets get back to photos. One day I noticed quite severe cloud front approaching from south west. Weather otherwise was good so I thought there may be chance to shoot some cloudscapes or interesting sunset. I jumped in my car and after about 15 minute drive I saw this:



Not a good landscape shot, but I think its interesting cloudscape shot. That was last time on that day when I saw some clear blue sky. A bit later I was few kilometers away waiting for sunset and got this:



Just after I took this image severe downpour forced me to go back to my car. I got bored after 15 minutes of waiting and decided to go back home. However when I was getting close to place from which I took first photo it slowly stopped raining and I was able to shoot these two images:





Forgive me burnouts. I forgot to take my Cokin filters Yeah, I know what you think: “how the hell he could’ve forgotten to take ND grad when he knew he was going to shoot cloudscapes?”. Really can’t answer that. Anyway… all images in this post were processed using software ND grad filter. Partially burnouts are due to my NEX-3 too because all images usually are about +0.5 to 1 EV overexposed than one would say judging from LCD preview (brightest settings available). Now I’m aware of this when reviewing, but these are one of my first shots with NEX.

And below is the only sunset shot I was able to get – just small rift in clouds.



Soon after sunset sky became overcast and only weak orange glowing over horizon was visible along with smudges of rain falling down…

[Greg Beetham]

A quite enjoyable series Hawk, lots of dramatic things happening in quick succession and nicely photographed.
Greg

[jbtaylor]

# 3 does it for me.

I thought there was a 4 shot limit on posts.
Either way, nice work.

[Dr. Harout]

#3-4-5 for me.

[bakubo]

Wonderful skies and great photos!

[InTheSky]

Nice work !

Frank

[Birma]

Wonderful cloudscapes Hawk . The gentle rolling countryside is a nice contrast to the dramatic skies.

[jcoffin]

While you're right that the noise is fairly apparent in some, I'm not sure it's necessarily a problem. It seems to me the slightly grainy look works nicely in at least some of them (e.g., the last shot).

[Hawk]

Thanks guys. I still think that all of these shots would be way better with real ND grad filter instead of software one. I wasn't really sure if I should post them so its joy to see that you've enjoyed looking at this little series. Such cloudscapes aren't rare here, but usually you have just few minutes before wind / rain / snow / whatever ruins them or light or view

[aster]

Hi Hawk, : )

Some series you have here. I can't prefer one over the other. They all are very striking with such dynamic cloud formations and warm green landscapes.

Since you say you'd rather use ND filters on the site and these don't satisfy your requirements, you better not forget taking at least one ND filter the next time you're heading out for the clouds!

Don't be so hard on yourself. : )


Yildiz

[Hawk]

Thanks Yildiz. Its not that I'm not happy with this series. I actually like it very much because it show dynamic changes which were taking place in the skies, ie. third photo has nearby fields and trees barely lit by sun, nice and green while far parts are blueish due to rain. On fourth photo rain has moved back few kilometers and only upper left part of terrain is blueish. Personally I'm most happy with last shots because of orange glowing and rain visible on it.

Don't be so hard on yourself. : )

Can't change that. Thats just me... always But I got used to it. I usually expect nothing less than perfection from myself, but life is teaching us well that sometimes we need to compromise