A Christmas Walk (caveat: a lot of pictures)

[Peter S.]

Dear camera collectors,

on the Christmas day I decided to escape the fog that plagued the Lake of Constance
for more than a week and went to a nearby hill. It is often above the upper border
of the fog or just at its limits, which gives lots of interesting impressions.
Moreover the icy fog leaves lots of hoarfrost on the trees and on the ground.

My wife stayed sick in bed :-( - and I was able to carry lots of lenses and the
Gitzo tripod with me.

When I started my walk (with my abiding companion Zorro) the fog was just begining
to dissolve...


1. Starting my walk


Looking back one can see the vague outline of a look-out, that was meant to be the
end of my walk - two hours and a couple of kilometers later.


2. Sun behind the haze


First I followed the edge of a forrest in the further dissolving fog.


3. Hoarfrost and haze


Just seconds later the scenery looked like this:


4. Winter panorama


I did not walk more than 100m between the two exposures - however I turned my direction
now following the border of the forrest on the left side. The forrest had thick hoarfrost
on its trees... www.serbe.ch/~peter/xmas07/w08_hoarfrost.jpg

Quite some people used to walk there (and escape the fog in the low lands).


5. Hazy trees


A view back with a 300mm lens...


6. Got ya...


I finally crossed the road...


7. Small village


... to follow another border of the forrest ...


8. Winter landscape


... to enter it finally.


9. Forrest paths


After another 30 minutes walk through the forrest I came back to the look-out.
What a spectacular view through the haze... (used the 5.6/300mm lens for this)


10. Look-out in the haze
I got this alternate version using a 135mm lens:
www.serbe.ch/~peter/xmas07/w28_tower.jpg


I climbed the tower and looked back - maybe You notice the scene from the picture
no. 4...


11. View to the north


12. View to the north-west


13. Sunset

What a walk! I wasn't able to catch some good exposures since my Alpstein visit
in October, and now these much good one within only two hours.
I exposed one film of Kodak Elite Chrome 100 (EB-3). There is hardly any postprocessing
except some cropping and cloning out a few spots/ugly branches.

Best regards
Peter

[GeneW]

Peter, these hoarfrost shots are spectacular! Magazine quality (meaning that in a very good way). Amazing you got this many great shots on a single roll.

Gene

[Randy]

Fantastic! Sometimes photos like that make one speechless.

[olroy2044]

Peter: I came to the site today just to look around, but these pics are so good, I had to log in and let you know how much I enjoyed them. Thnx for sharing them! Roy

[minoltaman]

Peter, those are amazing shots. Absolutely beautiful!!! You did a fantastic job of exposing the white and getting so much detail.

Film forever!!

[Michael Fraley]

Peter, you have some spectacular images and the narrative adds greatly to the enjoyment of them. What kind of camera did you use? Thanks for posting these and arranging them in sequence. Sehr gut!

[davesworld]

Peter, I am spellbound by your shots, they are trully very special indeed

Dave

[Peter S.]

Dear friends,

It was a perfect weather - being at the border between fog and clear weather is always one of the
most rewarding situations one can find. Then add the hoarfrost - and be happy!

Exposing snow is not that difficult. When I got blue sky I first meter the darkest area of it. Then I
meter the snow, which is usually two to three stops brighter. Then I add one or 1.5 stops to the
sky metering result to avoid overexposure. When I don't got clear sky I don't got the double check -
but over exposing by 1..1.5 F-stops delivers consistent results. Nevertheless the sky metering
method is better if other objects (houses, people) occupy large areas of the frame.

Getting the snow white is simple, too. I use slide film. Either a neutral one (as I did here) or one
with a cold color balance (read: Fuji Velvia), which is even a better choice. The neutral film is a bit
more forgiving when it comes to exposure accuracy.

I then scan with a properly adjusted scanner (done on a good monitor, preferably calibrated, in
the scanning S/W, no fancy and expensive S/W like Silverfast) - and the color balance is OK. I never need to fiddle around on snow images.

I used my favorite camera, the red releathered XD-7 and a bunch of lenses ranging from 21 to
300mm.

The sequence of the images is as taken. It was tough to select them, as I even have a few more
good ones. But I thought that posting thirteen images in one thread was more than enough...

Best regards (and a warm Thank You for the compliments)
Peter

[nikonbob]

Peter

Another example of your work that pleases me and the compliments are fully deserved. Don't stop, keep those images coming for our viewing pleasure.

Bob