Shot #10

I'm only ten shots into the project and already I'm finding the lens to be more of a telephoto than I expected.  Don't get me wrong, I like the lens.  It's just that most times I pick it up to shoot what I see isn't what I expected.  I suppose this is all part of learning about the lens so I should consider this a good thing.

On arrival home from work I noticed a rather pretty contrast between a bright red geranium and the darker green background of the trees and grass.  This would be a great shot I thought.  Shallowish depth of field to blur the background but not too much so that you could still pick out the deck chair.  There's also a Silver Birch tree trunk that I've tried to get on a golden mean.

The light was pretty harsh.  Very dark shadows and rather bright highlights.  I tackled this by bracketing the shot and then selecting the image that looked the best.  Remember I'm not allowing myself to crop or modify the image in camera or in post production.  The result is as you see to the left.

50mm lens, f5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 200

So, what do you think.  Pretty, or not?  Check out the HDR version of the same shot.  Which do you prefer?