We paid a visit to Alice Holt Forest in Surrey last weekend to take the kids around The Stick Man Trail (see here). It proved to be an interesting test of my March challenge of only using in-camera processing.
It was a bright and hazy day and the strong sun filtering through the dense collection of trees required me to be particularly attentive to exposure. Surprisingly it was the white balance where the camera struggled, turning the warm dreamlike colours cold, flat and uninteresting.
This is where the in-camera converter shone as it took just minutes to make the necessary changes to all of the images once I was home. Changing white balance to “fine” improved things however I went with “shade” to further emphasize the warmth and browns of the forest.
I tried various colour film simulations but ultimately returned to Classic Chrome; for me it has the best mix of colour, tonality and contrast. I am also beginning to appreciate Pro-Neg Std more and in certain lighting it proved to be kinder on faces than CC – you can see some examples in my previous Stick Man post.
Once again we only saw a small part of the forest, with so much more to explore we shall no doubt return.