Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC and Sigma 8-16mm

I just got back form a vacation to Asheville, NC. Fantastic place with great food, scenery, outdoor activities... I rented the Sigma 8-16 for the trip and thought I would post a few of my shots from the Biltmore Estate.


It's a tricky lens to use around anything with straight lines, but it was fun to experiment. Nice colors and pretty sharp, although you really have to watch the histogram with this one. Shooting in RAW saved lots of shots too.


These are from my 7D. C&C welcome! Thanks for viewing.


8mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/160 with .67ev (the lens notoriously tends to underexpose).


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8mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/125 with .67 ev


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16mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/60 with .67ev


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And from the back of the estate...8mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/125, .67ev


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The funny thing is, he

Do you think a filter would have helped the last shot??


Under exposed tree line due to bright sky.

Definitely, but the lens has a curved front element like a fish eye, so filters are tough. HDR would

What kind of PP did you do? There are halos in #3 that are a little distracting.

I definitely see that now. #3 was originally overexposed, and I got a little carried away with the highlight slider.


Exposure was tricky with the Sigma 8-16. In most situations, it would underexpose, so I often just left the camera at +.67ev. But sometimes that would overexpose the image, and I couldn't figure out a pattern.


BTW, I did a little Photomatix HDR work on #2 and #4 even though they are just single shot RAW files. What do you think? I am brand new to HDR -- so new that I haven't even shot a real bracketed series yet!


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