One of the many Canons placed along Hancock Avenue leading up to the Pennsylvania Regiment Memorial at Gettysburg National Park. I made a hastily planned, last minute trip to Gettysburg today (9-20-2009). It was not well thought out and my overall results showed. I usually do some pretty exhaustive research on places before I go. I had never been to the Gettysburg Civil War battlefields before and so I made the mistake of going when it was great weather, on a Sunday. The tourists were everywhere with their munchkins, maps and audio driving tour Cd’s. A surprising number of them had teenagers with them who moped around and generally tried to show the parental oppression they were living under (“how dare my parents try to take me somewhere uncool like a national historic site where I might actually *gasp*…learn something”) by standing in 95% of my shots. Next time I go, it’s going to be a cold, rainy weekday, you can count on that.
This was shot as seven bracketed RAW frames then combined into an HDR and tone mapped in Photomatix Pro. I used the new Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo filter (thin mount) for most of my shots today. I’m finding that even with the thin mount, at 10mm, there was a lot of bad vignetting. I need to remember to try and keep it over about 14mm to avoid that, otherwise I’m pretty happy with the filter overall. I’m not happy at all with the composition on this shot. I tried to rush things in between tourists walking in and out of the field of view and while I got the clouds and the field the way I wanted, the cannon was not at a good angle and a little too centered for my taste. better luck next time.
For more information on visiting Gettysburg National Park, please visit their web site
