I hope you’re staying warm on this chilly January day. Here are some photos from a warm location, past trip. All these photos were taken at dusk with the drone. I love this pool.
Mexican Resort and Sunrise
All I have for you today, is a photo from paradise. I took this drone photo during sunrise near Playa del Carmen Mexico.
Elements Pool
Here is a drone photo of the pool inside The Elements condo complex in Playa del Carmen Mexico.
Common HDR Photography Questions (Part 3) - Pennsylvanian Again (picture below)
Ok, here is the long awaited (by no one probably but me) final installment of the Common HDR Photography Questions Part 3 segment. I have already posted the answers to the first two questions:
* Why do I like HDR Photography?
* What is HDR Photography?
So it is now time for the last remaining question: How is an HDR Photograph created?
This is a difficult question only because it can get very technical quick and there are lots of HDR tutorials on line by about a thousand sources. My good friend Brad Truxell has a good one at his site http://www.somethinghdr.com/hdr-tutorial/. I don’t think you want me to repeat those and I really don’t want to do that either. That being the case, I think I’ll be fairly general and give you an overview of the process and not the technical steps (which would be boring). Let’s begin:
1. Find a subject you think will make a great photo (a person, subject, landscape, building, etc…). Whatever you like, but it should be a stable, non-moving object.
2. Set your camera up on a tripod (you can try getting HDR images without, but it won’t turn out very good).
3. Take your images (remember you’ll be taking multiple images of the same subject at different exposures) in Aperture mode at whatever f-stop is appropriate for your subject / environment. You can take the photos in manual mode, but there is no reason to do so.
4. If your camera has it, shoot a bracketed set of images. My camera allows me to pick brackets in sets of 3, 5, 7, or 9 images. This is important and I explained why in Part 2 earlier in my blog. If your camera doesn’t do bracketed photos, you can change the setting manually, but it won’t be as easy. I select fewer numbers of bracketed images in good lighting and more in harder (harsh) lighting environments.
5. Download all the RAW (JPG images don’t work as well) images onto your computer.
6. Open the bracketed image sets in Photomatix Pro to create your HDR Tonemapped photo. There are other software packages to make HDR images that you can also use. I just happen to use Photomatix Pro. In Photomatix Pro, there are all kinds of settings, presets, filters, etc…. Again there are a ton of tutorials you can read or watch on line if you want this level of detail. But that can be boring stuff, unless you are actually trying to do this. If you want that level of detail, we can talk specifics one on one.
7. Once the HDR Tonemapped image is done, I save it to my desktop.
8. You could stop here if you wanted, but I usually open the new image in Photoshop CS6 along with all the original RAW source pictures I got when I took the bracketed pictures.
9. I stack them all and pick portions of some to “Layer” into my HDR tonomapped picture. This just allows me to pick the best areas of these photos and merge them into my final product.
10. After the Layering process, I’ll sometimes adjust the color, contrast, crop, etc… just a little. I don’t go over board with the processing. My final step is to improve the image quality by reducing image noise and increasing sharpness.
11. Then re-save the image and enjoy it.
I’ve tried to keep this simple and short. There are a bunch of steps, keystrokes, and little tricks, but as I’ve mentioned you can get all that from YouTube.com and many other sites. I usually spend about 20 to 30 minutes processing each photo using the general process above. It is a major time commitment that isn’t for everyone. But I love how the pictures turn out at the end and am willing to spend my time doing it. I hope this is somewhat helpful in explaining How an HDR Photograph is created.
Remember to you can see Part 1 and Part 2 of this series by scrolling down the blog to those post.
Tonight’s Picture is of the Pennsylvania Building:
I posted another picture of this great building on December 18th. In that post, I covered the history of this building and what it is used for today. This is the vehicle drop off area at the front door. Can you imagine this being the front door to your home???? What can I say, they just don’t make buildings like they used to. Great facility with a great history.
Teaser (upcoming topics/photos):
I have a few great photos from that mini-trip to share with you.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Visitor Update - Pennsylvanian Building
The Pennsylvania Building was built in 1900 as the Pennsylvania Union Station Depot with 10,000 passengers per day passing through the station. Today it is an elegant apartment building with office spaces, spa, beauty shop, and other businesses. I haven’t been on the inside of this beautiful facility, but I can tell you it is amazing from the outside….as I think you can see. This HDR picture was taken about two weeks ago at around 8pm. Photo’s specs:
Nikon D800
7 Exposure brackets (0, +3, -3)
14-24mm 2.8f lens
Long exposures…some as long as 20 seconds.
HDR image created in Photomatix Pro and tweaked in Photoshop CS6
Visitors: MJ and I had a nice (sort of surprise) visit with Rodney and Angel M. last Saturday. They were going to be driving from Michigan to Virginia to pick up their son. They didn’t know if they would stop to see us and we were going to play it by ear because they were not sure of their schedule. In the end, they stopped by and we had a great visit catching up on family, travel, old friends and camera talk. We really enjoyed the visit and I appreciate the fact they drove out of their way to see us.
Pennsylvanian Building
Common HDR Photography Questions (Part 1) - Before & After HDR Processing
Over the last two years, when discussing my photography with friends, family, coworkers and strangers a few questions seem to come up over and over. They usually want to know:
* What is HDR?
* Why I like HDR?
* How is HDR photography created?
So I thought I would answer these three questions via installments, starting with the question of, why do I like HDR?
I realize some people don’t like HDR photographs. Believe me, many people have told me this over time. Some people just hate it. Most of these people are polite about it, while others are more blunt, but there is a specific segment of the population who don’t like it. Their main reason for disliking it seems to be around the fact that they don’t look like traditional photographs. I get that and understand the appeal of traditional images. And frankly, some people just don’t like change.
The vast majority of the people who look at my photos give me very nice feedback. I think HDR photographs draw you in with their vivid colors, intense details, high contrast, and warm feel. There is just something about a great HDR photograph that catches my eye and draws me in that a normal photography of the same subject doesn’t typically do. Like all types of photography, there can be terrible HDR pictures and I’ve created my share of them. HDR photography like anything else takes practice before you get to a point where the pictures are consistently good. I don’t always create great HDR images, but I think I create pretty good pictures on a consistent basis.
Below you can see two “Before & After” pictures (and their final full HDR versions). The left side of each picture is the original photograph and the right side is the final processed HDR picture. In both examples, I think the HDR version is a much more interesting image with more detail in both the light and dark areas of the photographs. Of course, that is just my opinion. Some people love Black and White photography. They specialize in that form photography. Some photographers will focus on fashion photography. In the end, it comes down to the photographer’s personal style and what type of photography keeps them interested. For me, HDR, Underwater, and Sports photography keep me excited about the art of photography.
Baltimore Harbor - Before & After HDR Processing
Full HDR version of Baltimore Harbor
Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh - Before & After HDR processing
Full HDR version of Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh