Sunrise over Laverstock Down...

After all that very heavy rainfall yesterday, was looking forward to a clear sunrise, this morning. The quite high hill over which it came meant that it was both watery and very bright, when it did come, 20 minutes after official 'sun-up' time.

I'd already taken loads by this time but nothing beats actual, penetrating golden sunlight and so I just had to use this. On the DX format of the D7000 used, my super-wide 14mm lens becomes a 21mm, still wide and needed to get that lovely tree in. Due to its mega bulbous front lens element and no lenshood (too wide not to cause vignetting), it is prone to flare.

But like sci-fi film directors who add such things, a good controlled series of blobs do accentuate brightness and at f13, a nice starburst on the sun itself also has come about. There was such huge contrasts here there absolutely no detail in the deep shadows to extract, but you cannot have everything! I also cropped a bit from the left, to make it more square and the composition more contained.

Due to the rain, these fields and where I was standing, some 100m from a small river were waterlogged, making my work even harder and I had damp feet within minutes, despite decent Goretex hiking boots. But, of course, it's worth it!