I have been waiting for the right moment which required a late day sun to fall on a bush of red winter berries. Having the light coordinated around my time has been the issue for several weeks. My simple goal , was to use the Nikon D3s, 70-180mm f/4.5-6.5d and the Canon 500d and a Marumi CPOL filter. Yep I said a Canon 500d which is a 77 mm close up lens which attaches to the front of the 70-180 (with step up ring) and changes closest focusing distance at ~20″ to 500 mm. I have been looking to buy one of these double elements for over a year. They are always backordered but back in October I got a break and found one for sale at Roberts camera.
The technical side of putting the gear and glass together and then metering for exposure with the Sekonic 758 for the area around the image was straight forward enough. The sun then started playing hide and seek with the clouds, the wind kicked in a bit to start moving around the leaves and it was freaken cold outside. The next thrill for this shot was to look into the brush among the hundreds of berries formations and select a subject that will fit in with the final composition and shadows.
In the digital darkroom, I wanted to try and work with finishing the image with the processes used by Diana Varner of Daily Walks and some teachings by Vince Versace about shapes and color. So all in all it was a personal project that has me eager for more.
