Photo by Daniel Kiechle
L’Ile D’Or
This is a tiny island with an iconic castle-like structure in the south of France near Saint-Raphaël. I took this photo in early March 2017 with a Nikon D750 and the AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens at 55mm. I shot in aperture-priority mode at ISO 100 with an aperture of f/7.1 and a shutter speed of 1/640s. I also used a flash to brighten up the water droplets of the waves.
Post processing notes:
It was very windy, so the waves were exactly what I wanted, but the sky was a boring uniform light blue. I used several filters, including Dynamic Contrast, to bring out some details in the foreground and the building and Sky Swap AI to make the photo more sinister-looking and dramatic. The program did an excellent job relighting the foreground based on the sky I had chosen. Finally, I added a vignette to lead the viewer's eye to the building. All processing was done in ON1 Photo RAW 2026 Max in June 2026.Exif information:
| Copyright: | www.kiechle.com |
| Camera: | NIKON D750 |
| Aperture: | f/7.1 |
| Focal Length: | 55mm |
| ISO: | 100 |
| Shutter Speed: | 1/640 sec. |