PHILIP JONES, TREDEGAR, WALES, SAYS… This was taken by the Cwm Clydach nature reserve, between Brynmawr and Gilwern, near Abergavenny. I could see the shot I wanted along the path, so I set up my EOS 6D Mark II and 70-300mm zoom lens on a tripod and used the selftimer to avoid camera shake. I zoomed in to 300mm to eliminate distractions and compress the scene so everything seemed closer together. Manual exposure was chosen and Landscape Picture Style to control the brightness and colours. Post-processing in Digital Photo Professional was minimal, with a boost to saturation being the main adjustment. I think I achieved the effect I wanted.
BRIAN SAYS… You’ve taken a different approach to capturing autumn’s colours, focusing the viewer to a section of the scene you saw. Using a long lens does compress the distance, but in this scene there is not so great a range of distances to compress, so the image seems to lack depth. A wider angle lens and viewpoint would have made the fence posts recede through the scene, and given more frontto-back sharpness. There are a few leaves out of focus at the top that disrupt the view of the autumn colours and leaves that you have
captured in the rear area. I do like the way you have processed the colours, with the Landscape Picture Style and saturation upped in post really adding to the result.