Click on the image for licensing terms
A rare cloudless evening in North Wales found my wife Liz and I enjoying a stroll along the paths surrounding the Alwen Reservoir, just about an hour before sunset.
As we walked around the marshy margins of the lake I spotted these fluffy marsh grass seed heads catching the golden, low angled light, so I squelched over to investigate further.
I found that by crouching low I could set the seed heads against a dark background of pines in the far distance, making those glowing white globes stand out even more.
So I took a photo at my default aperture of f11, the lens' optimum aperture to achieve maximum sharpness.
But I wasn't happy with the result.
Not only were the background tree trunks rendered in too much detail, distracting from the seed heads, but the shutter speed was slow enough to allow the gently waving grasses to blur.
Neither effect was pleasing to me, so I wound the aperture of my lens wide open to f4, effectively blurring the background trees to just a dark backdrop, and with the corresponding faster shutter speed freezing the movement of the grasses I was much more satisfied with this final result.
Filename - alwen reservoir grass 01.jpg
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 105mm
Exposure - 1/320 sec @ f4, ISO100
Location - Alwen Reservoir, North Wales
This image - 533x800px JPEG
Conversion - Adobe Lightroom
Comments - Fast shutter speed used to freeze movement
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2026 unless otherwise stated.