A winter morning in Mecklenburg

A Winter Morning in Mecklenburg

From 30 Jan 2015 until 01 Feb 2015 I had the chance to visit my family in Mecklenburg in the northeast of Germany. The winter so far had been pretty mild with just a few days of snow. Unfortunately I had missed all chances of a winter landscape shot. But for this weekend the weather forecast predicted a lot of snow fall and temperatures around 0°C. So my plan was to capture the rolling hills of Mecklenburg covered in snow. On the first day it did not stop snowing at all. The light was flat and no pictures were taken. The next day I got up in the early morning hours long before sunrise to visit one of my favorite spots near Neustrelitz in the south of Mecklenburg. But first I had to free the car from a lot of fresh snow and ice. During a half hour of driving I discovered a wonderful white winter landscape. Unfortunately it was still snowing slightly when I arrived and the sunrise was nowhere to be seen. The weather did not change for hours. A bit disappointed I took just a few test photos before returning home.

In the afternoon the weather improved and I made another attempt at the same spot. Instead of capturing once again the grey sky and greyish looking snow my aim was some fresh white snow in warm sun light. But this can only be achieved with a clear sky during sunrise and sunset. In the early evening the sunset light didn’t work out as planned for this scene. So the next morning I got up early once again and drove for the 3rd time in just two days to exactly the same spot. This time the sky looked really promising at dawn but thick fog still covered the landscape. Most of the fog cleared when the first rays of sunlight crossed the horizon. In the freezing cold I set up my tripod and could finally capture the photo I had in mind.

The above stitched panorama shows a field of view of about 170 degree by 85 degree. In full size this picture has size of 9318 x 4659 Pixel (about 43 Mio. Pixel ~ 2m x 1m print size). It is the result of 18 shots taken with the shifted TS-E 17mm lens in portrait orientation with a 2 stop neutral density reverse graduated filter in front of it. For more technical information see the Equipment page and also the embedded Exif data. During two days I went by car more than 200Km just for this picture. I spent more than 6 hours in the car and out in the field as well as another 1.5 hours for post processing. But it was worth it!