Covered Bridge, Chester/Lancaster County, PA

[CanonJim]

This is the moderately well-known Mercer's Mill covered bridge, south of Atglen PA. It's never well lit due to placement and surrounding trees but I did what I could. This is the Chester County side, when you come out on the other side, it's Lancaster County. Single lane, 87 feet long, built around 1880. Watch for Buggies!

 

[FanBoy]

Good shot. Covered bridges are often hard to compose due to sun angle and trees surrounding the bridge. Looking forward to all the fall foliage shots--which will be very soon.

 

[charlie76]

Ahhhh....levels adjustment!! I'll bet those colors could be improved...and contrast.

 

[CanonJim]

Ahhhh....levels adjustment!! I'll bet those colors could be improved...and contrast.

Sorry, not a Photoshopper. Sharpened a tad from raw and converted to JPEG.

 

[amolitor]

This is a nicely composed image, no major problems there.

The shadows are all a light grey, though. I don't know if it's wildly overexposed (the sky doesn't look like it is) or if you did something in post, but the shadows are wide open and look fairly bad. The colors look fine to me, after you fix the shadows.

 

[charlie76]

I'd try to get at the histogram somehow if I were you. The image is pretty cool...good composition...but the bright sunlight is trying to slightly blow out every color in the image...reds, greens, the whole bit...shadows too. Also, there are a few areas with exposure issues...overexposed rocks, etc. I'll try to do a quick edit when I get to my computer later this evening.

 

[amolitor]

OP's images are not ok to edit! I admit that I DID suck the image into an editor to see where the colors would go with a dark levels correction, but I didn't save the result!

 

[charlie76]

OP's images are not ok to edit! I admit that I DID suck the image into an editor to see where the colors would go with a dark levels correction, but I didn't save the result!

Ah...didn't notice that. Thanks for the heads up.

Not to the OP...get better help from other users by allowing us to edit you images..!!

 

[CanonJim]

Ok, I brought the original raw back into DPP and did some slider moves - brought the contrast way down, highlight up all the way, shadows up all the way, and saturation to 4. Then I set the Auto Lighting Optimizer to STRONG. These changes SEEM to have brought out a bit of the shadow detail at the back of the bridge, which was in COMPLETE DARKNESS due to the sun angle and time of day (about 2:30PM). Set the WB to cloudy.

I have no philosophical problem with editing of images, but as noted, I don't use Photoshop, so having someone bring one of my images in and then tell me, "Ok, I did levels this and shadows that and brightness that and Nik this and SilverFX that" is somewhat pointless.

GENERIC assistance is much more useful. I know it was a bad time of day, but trust me, the way this bridge is oriented, there is never a good time.. The woods to the back keep the Lancaster County side in pretty much perpetual darkness, and the sun was to my front, at about 11'clock high. As you can see by the shadows, it was shining almost directly on the stone wall to the front there, which also had a coat of white paint on it. :banghead:

 

[bazooka]

Have you considered shooting pre-dawn or post-sunset? I bet that would allow some light to get up under those trees a bit more while still have some direction to it.

 

[CanonJim]

Have you considered shooting pre-dawn or post-sunset? I bet that would allow some light to get up under those trees a bit more while still have some direction to it.

I understand your thoughts - and yes, those are usually better times to shoot than mid-day on a bright Saturday afternoon. But I'm not sure that the 'golden hours' would be any better - there would probably not be enough light for anything at all. You can't tell from the photo but there's also a large, high ridge to the west of the bridge, fully treed, that has to be taken into account. What I'd have to do is wait until around mid-February, when the sun would be low enough to give me some shadow interplay. If you look for the place on Google Earth you'll see what I mean. 39' N, -75W or so.

This was really just a scouting expedition, I didn't bring any filters, tripod, other lenses or anything - when I go back in five or six weeks we'll have to see if there are any better conditions, and I can take my time.

 

[FanBoy]

I understand your thoughts - and yes, those are usually better times to shoot than mid-day on a bright Saturday afternoon. But I'm not sure that the 'golden hours' would be any better - there would probably not be enough light for anything at all. You can't tell from the photo but there's also a large, high ridge to the west of the bridge, fully treed, that has to be taken into account. What I'd have to do is wait until around mid-February, when the sun would be low enough to give me some shadow interplay. If you look for the place on Google Earth you'll see what I mean. 39' N, -75W or so.

This was really just a scouting expedition, I didn't bring any filters, tripod, other lenses or anything - when I go back in five or six weeks we'll have to see if there are any better conditions, and I can take my time.

Maybe try for a "bright" overcast day to even out the exposure when you go back.