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February 24, 2025
Behind The Image Weekly - Mystic Horse
Mystic Horse by Tom Egel (tegel)
This photo was taken in 2016 on a trip to Iceland. I had recently started doing a lot more photography after purchasing a Df and a few manual focus lenses. This was my also first photography workshop trip, so I was excited for the opportunity to photograph that amazing country.
I was out for a walk one morning and came across a pasture with some horses. One of then was quite curious and came over to check me out. I used my 50mm f/1.2 Ai-s lens wide open from just a few feet away with a fence separating us. The light was quite flat and overcast, so I thought it might work well in black and white.
I had actually forgotten about this photo until recently when our local camera club announced they were looking for prints for an exhibition. I found this in the archives and wanted to see what I could do it with some of the new AI enhanced tools. The 50/1.2 has never been described as sharp wide open, but Topaz AI Sharpen was able to provide just enough extra detail around the head area. I also experimented with the new Lens Blur tool in Lightroom. The DoF was already quite shallow due to the aperture, but the tool was able to soften some of the background ever so slightly to help improve the image.
I entered it as a 10x15 print framed and matted and many people commented that it was one of the highlights of the exhibition. Fortunately, no one purchased it, so now I have it hanging on my wall .
Df + 50mm f/1.2 Ai-s | 1/125s @ f/1.2 | ISO 1600 | Handheld
Posted by dm1dave at February 24, 2025 2:00 AM