Return to Sheffield Park & Gardens

The other was to take it out somewhere and see how it performed in the sort of places I like to shoot. And so on one sunny winter’s day I decided to take it back to Sheffield Park & Gardens, somewhere I’d visited about 18 months previously.

This time, I went on my own on a weekday in December, so the place was pretty quiet. Being December, most of the autumnal colours the park is known for had fallen off the trees and were on the floor. That isn’t to say there was no colour on the trees, of course.

I picked a calm day so the water was glasslike in this pond.

Given it was winter, I also tried taking this same shot from behind some branches.

There were a few brown leaves on the trees, so I took a photo of some backlit by the sky.

Unlike my last visit, this time I wandered a bit further and wider in the grounds, and ended up exploring away from the ponds which we’d hung around previously. The paths I found myself on were lined with fallen autumn colours. When editing, I found myself a Lightroom preset that helped bring out those colours.

I took a closeup of the floor, partly playing about with the f/2.8 aperture that had attracted me to the lens in the first place.

The paths were perfect for some autumnal scenery. Clearly they’d been trodden (or cared for) well enough to be clear, but the surrounding areas looked undisturbed, which was nice.

I love shooting in winter. The light is usually lovely and lacks the harsh intensity you get in summer.

Especially when I found some leaves that hadn’t fallen off yet.

It wasn’t long before I found myself looping back to a body of water. There I decided to give myself a challenge by shooting near enough straight into the sun.

By the water were some piles of leaves and sticks. I presume they were there for a reason – nesting, perhaps – but I couldn’t help but be reminded of that scene in the first Gremlins movie when all the gremlins started replicating. That might just be me.

The particular bit of water I was walking around was not one I’d visited before. This one had a water feature.

As you can see, to try to get some motion in the water, I shot at a lower shutter speed. I put the camera in my lesser-used shutter priority mode (I usually shoot in aperture priority), and set a time of 1/10sec. The camera had to pull out an aperture of f/22 to cope.

My next shot of it, a bit zoomed in, only needed f/14.

By this water feature there was an old Victorian pumping system, now unused. Annoyingly it was behind a gate.

This spot also provided an opportunity to deliberately and wilfully shoot into the sun, through a spindly wintry tree, something I often love doing (and something which, fittingly for my tastes, is also reminiscent of the decorations on Boscastle Pottery).

The water was still lovely and calm. Much like my last trip to these gardens, I found a nice Lightroom preset which enhanced the colours of the foliage.

Then some ducks came along and, combined with a breeze, the water looked less calm.

A little further around the pond was another lovely wintry tree, and this time I could shoot with the sun in a little bit more of a traditional angle.

I also got a shot of one of the ducks in the golden light, with the lovely reflections on the water.

This probable pond (I doubt it’s big enough to be legally classified as a lake but pond makes it seem like it should be in someone’s back garden. Although, I suppose, technically it is) was set up perfectly for some idyllic shots of trees reflecting in the water.

I wandered a bit more away from the water and soon found a hut, which lent itself to a monochrome shot.

This is one of those occasions where time has passed since I took the shot, so I’m not entirely sure why I was shooting at f/9 – most likely, I was shooting some of the more landscapy shots above and forgot to open back up. Although for this next shot of the more wooded area I’d found myself in, I shot at f/9 to get more of the trees in focus. Only problem is, with the winter light available, it has necessitated a higher ISO.

There were a few other leafy paths to photograph too.

Some of the mossy tree trunks made for interesting textures, and I like the contrast of the green of the moss and the orangey-brown of the leaves.

The texture and colour of the leaves warranted a shot of their own.

A robin landed on a wintry tree near me, and for the first time I lamented not having a bit more focal range on my lens. You can see the robin clearly from its bright colour, but it does not exactly dominate the image.

I was able to carefully take a few steps closer to get a clearer shot.

It didn’t take much before I scared it off, however. This is why next on my list was to get a better telephoto lens that doesn’t also require faffing around with an RF-EF mount adapter and has a bit more reach to counter the switch to full frame, but its not easy to justify when it’s not that often that I end up needing one.

Luckily the next bird I saw was a bit harder to scare off.

I continued my wander and soon found my way to the bridge, which was nicely weathered.

I’m not entirely sure why I was shooting at f/16 at this point. I had played about with some HDR exposures just before this so I was obviously either fighting an overexposed bracketed shot, or chasing everything being in focus. I do at least remember to use the depth of field preview button from time to time to make sure the focal depth is what I’m after, and it’s possible it’s what I required for this shot.

From near this vantage point I could see Sheffield Park House, framed nicely by some wintry colours.

Sheffield Park looks lovely in its autumn/winter colours. A lot of that is the deep colours of the fallen leaves on the ground. In this spot it was particularly potent.

Sometimes the blue sky poked through the clouds, offering another fine contrast of colours.

I was soon distracted by a colourful patch of leaves which demanded my attention.

Shooting at f/2.8 for minimum depth of field meant that I couldn’t get both the yellow and red leaves in focus at the same time. I’m happy with that, because I think the shot works better for it, but I can’t decide which looks better – the one with the red leaf in focus, or the one with the yellow.

I love the colours and textures of these leaves, especially how they contrast with each other and the ground.

A little further on was a more bizarre sight.

The combination of the indoor-looking dining chairs amongst the wintry scene brings a hint of Narnia to the shot – at least to my warped mind which has a habit of making odd and tenuous connections.

As I made my way out, I took one last shot of Sheffield Park House, looking imposing at the top of the hill. Making the image monochrome only added to the effect.

All-in-all, it was a fair and decent test of a potential new lens. And such is the way of things, I hoped to hate it to save me some money. That was not the case, and the RF 24-70 is now in my kit bag, meaning I’m two for two when it comes to hiring lenses and then ending up buying them relatively soon thereafter.