Experimenting (Take 2)

In my last post, I talked about playing around with my new graduated neutral density filter, but I didn’t have a great example of what the effect really was. However, this weekend, I went with a large group from the math department up to Odell Lake, up in the cascades. It was a gorgeous place, and it was nice to get away from Eugene and work for a few days (though I’m making up for all that missed time tonight…). Saturday afternoon, I went down to the docks at the lake at sunset, and had a chance to play some more with the filter. Below are two roughly identical shots, the first without the filter, and the second with it

Notice that the surface of the lake is exposed about the same in both shots. The difference between the two is the exposure of the sky, especially on the left side of the shot (where the sun was going down). Overall, I’d say it was a fairly large improvement in the shot.

I’ll post more about the weekend adventures (and some more photos) next time. But for now, it’s back to work…

-Ben