I had intended to use the windmill for the shutter speed exercise but, on the way to it, I spotted a wind turbine and used that instead. On reflection, the windmill possibly was not the best subject for this project because its proportions did not match those of the camera sensor, therefore filling the frame was not always easy. I wanted to avoid cropping because the object of the exercise was to use the camera viewfinder for composition. I did this as much as I could, but I still had to trim some images down slightly, mostly to straighten buildings, correct perspective or remove small areas that reduced impact. Where I did this, I tried to avoid changing the shape or proportions of the image as it was recorded in the camera.
Standard View
This image was shot with an aperture of f22 at 1/100 sec. ISO 400. As there was little space between the road and the windmill I used a 17mm lens to get everything in. I also took some multiple exposure shots to represent the movement of the propellors, which were quite effective. One of these is in the Extras post.
Subject tightly framed
I used an ultra-wide zoom at a focal length of 10mm, hence the fisheye effect. I chose this lens because I wanted to make the most of the shadow that the propellor made on the building as it started its upward journey. The image was shot at f11, 1/250, ISO 400. This was the image I cropped most. I could not compose the shot without a lot of sky above the windmill because of the lens I used. There was also slightly more space at the edges of the image than I saw in the viewfinder. Overall, I am pleased with the image; I feel it is more appealing and interesting than the standard view.
Part of the subject
This image was shot at f11, 1/40 at ISO 100 with a 50mm lens. I cannot remember a good reason for changing the ISO value. A tripod was used. The image required a very small amount of cropping at the top. I did not remove the top edge of the propellor as required by the project guidelines because it would detract from this particular image; it might have been different if there was a much larger part of the building at the top. I was trying to make an interesting composition out of the different sized propellors. The position of the 'fulcrum', the apex of the roof, nearer the large propellor keeps balance to a certain extent. I thought the aeroplane' vapour trail might fill in the large area of blue in the top right hand corner and its direction doesn't clash with the the larger blade, but the 'slash' it makes through the picture is quite distracting.
A long shot including the surroundings
This was shot at f13, 1/125, ISO 100 with the lens set to a focal length of 17mm to capture as much of the context of the windmill as possible. The countryside is very flat here and the feature of it that I wanted to show was the power station at some distance behind the windmill; one of two or three that could be seen on the skyline. The interesting aspect of this is clearly the juxtaposition of the old power source and the new; the environmentally friendly and the 'polluter'. The image does not strongly demonstrate this relationship, however I noticed a road going away from the windmill that might put it in line with the power station. I drove along here, found a promising stopping point, got out a telephoto zoom lens and captured the following image.
The old and the new
This was shot at 240mm, f13, 1/500 at ISO 800. I raised the ISO value to ensure I could reduce the aperture and get a decent depth of field. I probably could have managed at ISO 400 and a speed of 1/250, but there is no major detriment to the image from 'noise'. The flattening of perspective caused by the longer focal length and the position of the camera have brought the two power sources into a spatial relationship that more strongly emphasises the contrast between them. I cropped this image to make the contrast more stark and the result is in the Extras post.
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