Emmerberg castle ruins in the direction of Schneeberg
The castle ruins Emmerberg towards Schneeberg and sun star
The castle ruin Emmerberg is a medieval hilltop castle in an advanced stage of decay on a ridge above the Prosset gorge in the southeast of Lower Austria. From the car park on the country road, a path leads past the Emmerberg castle ruins up to the Schloßberg behind. Here you can read what I do when the subject is misaligned, what can be seen in the photo and what you should pay attention to in backlighting.
Emmerberg castle ruins
The castle ruin Emmerberg is a medieval hilltop castle in the already well advanced stage of decay on a ridge above the Prosset gorge in the southeast of Lower Austria in the market town of Winzendorf-Muthmannsdorf. The castle is located on the south-western spur of the 583 m high and densely wooded Schlossberg approx. 10 km west of Wiener Neustadt. The path starts opposite the parking lot on the country road and after about an hour's walk leads past the castle ruins of Emmerberg up to the Schlossberg.
Determination of the photo spot
I searched Google Earth for a suitable position and height to depict the motif of the Emmerberg castle ruins with the imposing Schneeberg. The current position and setting of the sun can also be easily determined there. In the OpenStreetMap Opentopomap, a path was found that leads as close as possible to this position. However, the 3D Model from Google Earth does not take into account vegetation such as trees and so you can only see on site whether there is a clear view of the desired motif. Finally, we found a position where you could at least catch the motif with the telescope stick of the tripod with your hand outstretched upwards and the Live View display folded down. My partner triggered with the IR remote control.
Click on the AR button and find out WHAT can be seen on the AR:Photo.
In the AR:Photo you can see countless mountain peaks, the cloud-covered Schneeberg in the EDGE Model and the Fischerhütte on the summit up to the Großer Otter.
HDR (High Dynamic Range)
Since the contrast range is very high in a backlit picture, the exposure in the camera must be chosen carefully. If you look through the electronic viewfinder of a DSLM camera, only the core area of the sun may be overexposed, the rest of the subject must be within the brightness histogram. However, since the contrast range of a complex landscape scene usually exceeds that of the camera, so-called HDR recordings are used. Here, a series of exposures is made from several photos with different exposures from the same pose and later merged with a tool like Luminance HDR. The individual photos can also be combined manually in Luminar 4 to form a photo with a higher contrast range than that of the camera. For a sun star, the camera must have a lamellar aperture, the aperture must be reduced and the sun should ideally be positioned on an edge, e.g. bend over the horizon line or branches.
Since I took my photo out of hand, an HDR was out of the question. Here I am happy about the 14 exposure levels of my Sony A7 II, which also captures such a high contrast range. For the sun star I have chosen the f/16, with an even smaller aperture the effect of the diffraction blur must be taken into account.
I hope I got the mood right with the sun star and the cloud-shrouded Schneeberg and I am happy if you like this photo.
Follow me in the other posts
In the next few posts I will visit other beautiful photo spots in the Vienna and Lower Austria area. I report on the different lighting conditions and image compositions on site, the previous search for suitable photo spots and of course the final photo development with Luminar 4.
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