Painterly photo of Dolina Bialego

I didn't want to take this photo. I found the scene rather boring and the light way too flat. But my girlfriend for some reason spent a few minutes taking photos of it so I decided to reconsider (ok she asked me to :) ) and finally took some images. And I'm glad I did so because otherwise I would miss a great photo opportunity. I know it's not the best approach for photographer to refuse to take photos but I try not to take photos I know I won't have time to process (and I thought it would be the case). I already have thousands of photos in my "TODO" folder and with each trip I add a few thousands more... the folder grows really fast :) I have to limit myself sometimes.

The photo was taken in Dolina Bialego (White Stream Valley) in Polish Tatra mountains and although there are some more popular valleys there (like Dolina Koscieliska or Dolina Chocholowska) if you're in Polish Tatra mountains make sure to visit this particular one as well because it is really pretty and picturesque. No matter it's winter or autumn.

As you can see from the specs below I was lazy and didn't set up my tripod. It required setting ISO to 3200 to get correct exposure but despite such high ISO value there was just a little noise. Well as I mentioned in this post, times when high ISO results were unusable are gone. Modern cameras can handle high ISO pretty well.

Technical details:
Camera: Canon 5D MK III
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 35 mm
Aperture: f/7.1
Exposure time: 1/100 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 3200
Number of exposures: 1
E.V. Step: n/a
Flash used: no
Tripod: no
Filters: circular polarizing filter
Technique: luminosity masks
Software: Magic Lantern 2.3, Lightroom 5.0, Photoshop CC