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For my sins I got up very early yesterday morning for a visit to the Mayfield Lavender farm in Banstead for the sunrise. As a bonus I also caught the moon setting when I arrived. So quickly setup camera on tripod with telephoto to catch the below. I tried to bracket the shots but the moon was moving so fast that didnt work. This was one of the underexposed bracketed shots with the foreground lavender exposure increased by 2 stops.

Moonset by Paul Heester, on Flickr

You could say this next shot was inspired by David Candlish's excellent image from a few years ago. I made an effort not to look at that shot before I went but looking at his shot again (forum thread viewtopic.php?f=6&t=170&hilit=mayfield&start=450#p2793) I can see we must have stood in a very similar spot. Like him I was also joined by another tog, who was using flash to get some interesting effects.

The sky was too clear to give much interest and with the dynamic range involved I had to bracket shows and use HDR (Luminance HDR) to get enough detail. It also required PS work to remove contrails, fix vignetting, bit of flare and local curves adjustments. I did also set my alarm this morning with a view to a revisit but the conditions looked exactly the same as yesterday, so decided more sleep was the answer

Mayfield sunrise by Paul Heester, on Flickr

Nicely done

Great shots Paul! The moon set is certainly not a picture everyone is likely to get in that over photographed location. You should enter it into Mayfield photo competition.

Already submitted

Nina wrote:Great shots Paul! The moon set is certainly not a picture everyone is likely to get in that over photographed location. You should enter it into Mayfield photo competition.