I went hiking in southern France

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Lyrt
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Post by Lyrt »

Clive, Danny, the town is called Sainte-Énimie and is located in the Tarn canyon, a great spot for kayaking (does that verb exist?) and fishing. The roofs only look bluish because of the light that day. They are actually slate grey. Look at the church’s roof:

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ZethLent
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Post by ZethLent »

Yukio, you have probably posted it in the past, but may I ask what camera you are using for these snaps? Thanks.

Seth
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Lyrt
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Post by Lyrt »

Hello Seth,
I use a Nikon D300 coupled with a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6, a Nikon 50mm f/1.4, a Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR and a SB-800 flash. I’ll probably upgrade to a full-frame D700x or D3s when Nikon releases them, but of course it won’t help me take better pictures. It will just satisfy my self-narcissist self-self-satisfaction.
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GregPQ
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Post by GregPQ »

Yukio,
To my eye, you take a lot of (beautiful) wide-angle shots. I'm assuming that's the Sigma 10-20mm zoom?

If you upgrade to a full-frame, would you need to get new lenses?

I do love your photos. An aspect of France I've never seen before!

Greg
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jww
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Post by jww »

Lyrt wrote:...

Hey Wendell, thank you. You know, this is the least populated part of France. I would have to spend hours to get to see cars on those switchbacks. :)
Nice -- I didn't know that there were quiet, less populated areas of southern France -- especially since A Year in Provence made it "the" place to go for a time.
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jww
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Post by jww »

Lyrt wrote:Hello Seth,
I use a Nikon D300 coupled with a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6, a Nikon 50mm f/1.4, a Nikon 105mm f/2.8 VR and a SB-800 flash. I’ll probably upgrade to a full-frame D700x or D3s when Nikon releases them, but of course it won’t help me take better pictures. It will just satisfy my self-narcissist self-self-satisfaction.
+1 -- I have marveled at how we become gear-heads, recognizing that it's not the gear that takes the shot, it's the photographer.

Kinda like watching The Stig take a less-than-fast car around a race track, then watching the Top Gear boys try to beat him. :wink:
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Lyrt
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Post by Lyrt »

Greg, thank you very much. Yes, I mostly used my Sigma but I found it sometimes frustrating. There are some spots where a 24 or 35mm would have been helpful. When I get my full-frame camera, my 50mm and 105mm will work while the Sigma, a DX lens, won’t. My objective is to get what the Nikonists call the “holy trinity”:
14-24mm f/2.8
24-70 mm f/2.8
70-200 mm f/2.8 VRII
I’m also eyeing the 24mm f/3.5 tilt-shift.

Wendell, just avoid the usual July and August rushes of tourists and you’ll find plenty of French regions to be wonderfully desolate and calm. Perfect for the completive guy I am.
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Lyrt
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Post by Lyrt »

What a frustrating day. I wanted to redo the same experience but I miserably failed. I woke up at 5AM, drove my car for two hours only to find black ice and snow. I had to backtrack and take a long detour. Only to find fog, fog and fog. And mist. And rain. I’ll go back in March. Duh.

This is the only worthy shot:
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Fog. I told you.
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GregPQ
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Post by GregPQ »

Yukio,
What evocative shots. I had no idea France could be so mysterious. I especially like the photo with the slate-roofed building.

Can you share what equipment (tripod?) and settings you used?

Greg
Fiat lux, et facta est lux. Que la lumière soit, et la lumière fut. Let there be light, and there was light.
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jww
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Post by jww »

It's a drag when the sky gets blown out differently from what your eye thinks it sees. A bit of photoshopping should clean it up, I would think.
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fallingwickets
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Post by fallingwickets »

ditto on what Greg said about the picture. Really nice shot....thanks for sharing

clive
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Lyrt
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Post by Lyrt »

Greg, the Lozère department is France’s best kept secret. It is the least populated and most elevated part of France. Yesterday I drove for nearly two hours without crossing anyone. I ate my lunch on an old wood bench hearing only the bleat of goats, the bell of a cow and the raindrops on the leaves of the tree I was under. Pure magic. On a related note, I suspect Brittany to offer its share of mystery.

As for the equipment, I used my D300 coupled with the 18-70 kit lens always set on ISO400 and f/8.

Wendell, it is exactly as my eyes saw it. It was in the middle of clouds and there was no sky to be seen. :)

Clive, thank you. I actually find this photo to be terribly unremarkable but I posted it because I realised some people could find it exotic. When I posted my first batch of photographs from Lozère, I was surprised to see people liked the ones I almost wanted to throw in the garbage can. It was just cultural differences at work.
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Post by jww »

Lyrt wrote:...

Wendell, it is exactly as my eyes saw it. It was in the middle of clouds and there was no sky to be seen. :). ...
Didn't mean to come across all "know-it-all" -- sorry if I did. :oops:

I was thinking of the last shot -- where the sky meets the horizon, it looked a bit blown -- if you shoot in RAW it's an easy tweak.

Nice pictures all around -- nothing like seeing countryside and old ruins. Some of my favourite spots are similar - Whitby Abbey and Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, some of the remote-ish castles in Northern Wales. This stuff is tough to beat as a photographic subjet, imo.
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Lyrt
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Post by Lyrt »

Wendell, you did not come across as a know-it-all. I thought you thought there was a sky somewhere in the pictures. I spent the whole day under (and in) a lid of clouds. I always shoot RAW and I suspect you’re hinting at the “recovery” tool of Adobe Camera Raw. Another technique is to duplicate the picture, set the transparency mode on “multiply” and use the mask to selectively recover or darken the sky.

Personally, I dream of going to Scotland and Iceland. Might be a good time for that, I hear the Icelandic króna took a nose dive so deep it emerged back in Oceania.
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jww
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Post by jww »

Lyrt wrote:Wendell, you did not come across as a know-it-all. I thought you thought there was a sky somewhere in the pictures. I spent the whole day under (and in) a lid of clouds. I always shoot RAW and I suspect you’re hinting at the “recovery” tool of Adobe Camera Raw. Another technique is to duplicate the picture, set the transparency mode on “multiply” and use the mask to selectively recover or darken the sky.

Personally, I dream of going to Scotland and Iceland. Might be a good time for that, I hear the Icelandic króna took a nose dive so deep it emerged back in Oceania.
The entire UK is a great place for photo opps -- Northern Wales is phenomenal -- great locales for shooting.
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malocchio
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Post by malocchio »

man ! what a gorgeous paradise....the photos are so intense i can almost smell them !! great photography..
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Lyrt
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Post by Lyrt »

Yesterday I went visiting the old Valmagne Abbey, Southern France. Only two HDR photographs today.

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The resident monk.
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The nave and the barrels.
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The cloister.

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They sell fine beers and (mediocre) wines.
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And i saw a bee fighting a Death's-head Hawkmoth.

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Blue As A Jewel
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Post by Blue As A Jewel »

Even the stray cats look sexy in France...
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Lyrt
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Post by Lyrt »

From Wikipedia :
The Cirque de Navacelles is a large erosional landform, an incised meander, located towards the southern edge of the Massif Central mountain range in France.

The area is an example of a dissected plateau in which the Vis River eroded a deep channel through the base of the valley, creating an incised meander which eventually eroded through creating a cut-off at the neck of the loop. This left an oxbow lake which later dried up, leaving deposits of silt and peat. This created what is the only patch of arable land for many miles around.

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A 1920 pixels version here :
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A closer view of what’s left of the oxbow lake two hours later, at sunset, from the opposite side.
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For those interested in photography, here are two shots of the river's meandering erosion, straight out of the camera. The left one was shot with a polarising filter, the right one with none.

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Trumperman
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Post by Trumperman »

Yukio,

All I can say is that you are a magician with a camera! Your photos never cease to amaze.

Tres Bien!

Bill
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