down by the lake

I was out visiting relatives yesterday to see how their new house by the lake is going. While there I wandered down to the shore to see what it looked like. I knew that we had not had enough low temperatures yet to allow skiing on the lake yet, but wanted to see the progress. The house is looking fantastic, but the scale of what they are doing is enormous.

We have had some heavy snow falls. Normally lots of snow slows down the process of freezing the water (acting as an insulator) and its interesting to see how rocks can act to break the water stratification layers and bring warmth from lower up to the surface (preventing freezing).

I took that with my GF and the 20f1.7 lens (as RAW) ... moved it over to the phone to have a go with Snapseed. I kind of like this "brash" retune of the image, and like the way its emphasised textures in the hills on the other shore and exaggerated the clouds.

Snapseed has a much more "rough and tumble" approach to its HDR, and so that can go for or against it in specific situations and outcome wishes. For instance below is the image I made using my old favourite Photomatix (a far more delicate tool)

far more photographic in appearance and without the brightness artifacts around the grasses. Still better than the Out Of Camera JPG though

I guess it depends on what you're seeking ... myself I think that the above image would get more comments when printed by my desk than the lower one.

After all ... people love Rock and Roll ;-)