Fishing at Sunset

This photo, taken last week, comes from our annual family reunion in New Braunfels. Our family has been gathering once a year for a long or short weekend for 36 years now. The fisherman is my cousin, Travis, and he's winding down a long, nice day of family gathering on the back deck. This spring-fed pond is in Landa Park, and the water is clear and cold :-)

click for larger image

This was an impromptu shot. I walked outside right before sunset and took a look at the clouds. The sky and cloud patterns had potential for nice color. Travis moved around a lot, so I decided to keep it quick, and take handheld shots (as opposed to using the tripod and spending a long time with the shot).

I used my Canon 5D and 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II lens with no filter. It was shot in RAW at 35mm, 1/160 sec., f/8, and ISO 400.

I processed the RAW file twice: once at -0.5 ev (for the sky) and again at +0.5 ev for the foreground. I then feathered the lighter exposure (foreground) over the darker (sky) to have a more balanced looking exposure overall.

What I did to get this shot (in shooting and in processing) is a good way to capture a scene like this when shooting hand-held. I also didn't worry about loosing detail in the shadow areas since I was going for the classic and cliche silhouette look. If I had been using the tripod, then I would have shot several different exposures of the same scene.

I'm still impressed by the 28-105mm lens. The sharpness (at f/8) appears to be as good as my more expensive "L" lenses. It does, however, lack the color and contrast "pop" as seen in the better lenses, but most of that can be brought back by careful post-processing.