Pre-Dawn Pelsall North Common

The promise of a sunrise had me up at 5:30 this morning. I hadn't visited the common for a few weeks so decided to drive down and see what transpired.

This was only my 5th shot of the day. After this brief colourful moment, the clouds obscured the sun and we were left with mellow diffuse light for the next couple of hours I walked around taking photographs.

I used a 3 stop Lee ND Grad to control the light in the sky. A bit of post processing in lightroom to bring out more detail on the foreground and tidying up one or two dust/oil spots in Photoshop and this is the result.

If any fellow blippers are using the Nikon D800 do you notice that you are getting oil/grease spots on the sensor? I know there is a reported issue with the D600 but when I was at the Focus on Imaging show the Nikon representative I spoke to was keen to tell me this wasn't an issue with the D800.