HDR: an Experiment

I've been interested in HDR (High Dynamic Range imaging) Photography for a while.
There are some great HDR images out there, and the technique is very unique. 

Here are a few professional HDR images (all link to a post):

by Gavin Phillips

by Leonardo Riano

by Nicholas Moeggenberg

by James Brandon

by MorBCN

After browsing around and reading some tutorials, I decided to give it a try.
I needed 4 things:

1. A camera
2. A tripod
3. A program that did HDR photo merges (Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3)
4. Something to photograph

Well, I ended up just photographing my neighborhood. HDR is a more dynamic kind of photography. It shows closer to what the human eye sees, and captures more of the range of colors and light.

In this first photo, the sky is a lovely blue, and the clouds are fluffy and white. But the rest of the neighborhood is a bit underexposed, and the light is kind of "murky" there.

But....voila! In this photo, both the sky and the neighborhood are properly exposed! Cool, right!?

But, you say, HOW in the WORLD did you do that? 

It is actually quite simple.
I set my camera up on the tripod.
I turned the Aperture Priority mode on.
I correctly exposed for the sky.
Then I shot about 7 different exposures.
In some of the photos, the sky is way over exposed, but the neighborhood is lovely.
In others, the neighborhood is way underexposed, but the sky looks great.

Then I took those photos and imported them into Corel PSP, a program that is somewhat like Adobe Photoshop.
I clicked on "HDR Photo Merge" and loaded about 7 photos.
I fiddled with a few settings, and got this photo. Amazing.



(Basically all the program does is merge the images together.)

Here is another HDR photo merge that I have done (in color and black and white):

HDR is used mainly for landscape and cityscape photography. There are great things about HDR, and not so great things. If you look at the clouds in the comparison photos above, the clouds are much clearer in the original photo than in the HDR. That's because clouds move. I took 7 images and merged them together, but the clouds moved slightly in each shot, so they are blurry in the final product.

In my photo, it looks a little weird and unprofessional, but some photographers are very talented at using the moving clouds to their advantage, like in the last example I gave. (by MorBCN)

So, HDR photography is amazing. I enjoyed experimenting with it, and look forward to using it occasionally.
It is definitely not a technique that should be used all the time, but there are a few instances where it can be very well used. Why don't you give it a try?!

Reflectors + Painted Pots

I had fun playing with reflectors recently, and have a few photos to share...

These little pots are so unique that I just had to grab my camera!

A 5:45 Sky

A wonderful sky greeted me at 5:45 this morning.

And of course, I ran for my camera and got a couple dozen shots of it :)

Lunar Eclipse

As some of you may (or may not) know, there was a total lunar eclipse 4 days ago, on December 10th. It was in the southern hemisphere, so it wouldn't have been visible to those of you in the US :)

I didn't stay up to watch it all :P
But I got a few neat photos!

8:18pm, 12/10/11, ISO 80, f/2.8, 30.0 sec

 The moon was super bright, as you can see. Well, I took that photo on a long shutter speed, so it wasn't quite that bright. But it was bright, believe me!

8:20pm, 12/10/11, ISO 80, f/3.2, 30.0 sec

 AMAZING stars!

8:28pm, 12/10/11, ISO 80, f/4.4, 1/800 sec

 See, the above photo was taken with a 1/800 sec shutter speed. That's FAST! If you tried to take a photo in normal daylight with that shutter speed, the photo would be super dark.

8:29pm, 12/10/11, ISO 80, f/4.4, 1/500 sec

LOVE IT! :D

 Around an hour later:

9:23pm, 12/10/11, ISO 80, f/4.4, 1/80 sec

Oooh....the eclipse has started....:)

9:24pm, 12/10/11, ISO 80, f/4.4, 1/125 sec

9:25pm, 12/10/11, ISO 80, f/4.0, 1/6 sec

The above photo is pretty awful, but if you look closely, (or click on the photo to make it bigger!) you can see the whole outline of the moon. Amazing, hm?! I took the photo on a slower shutter speed so you can see the whole outline, but the "lit" part of the moon is very bright. 

I had fun :)
Taking photos at night is a challenge, (I NEED A TRIPOD!) but it can be very rewarding.

Linking up at my3boybarians...Sweet Shot Tuesdays :)

A Storm Brewing

My sister came running downstairs ten minutes ago and told me,

"Looks like a storm...the sky is almost black behind the house."

This is what I found.

I just noticed the tiny bird on top of the roof...see it?

Sure enough....I hear the rain now!

An Adorable Little Boy with an Orange Bandanna

Isn't he one of the most adorable little kids? I saw him playing around during the Bible Dedication and just had to take a few photos of him. :)

How do you like his orange bandanna? It was part of the traditional tribal costume for the men there :)

Heading off into a busy weekend....

happy 11/11/11 to all of you :)

Elements of Composition #7

Today's element of composition is  

Lines

using horizontals, verticals or diagonals to emphasize your subject

Well, I don't have a perfect example to share with you today, but this photo will work with a bit of explaining. 

I was photographing this bridge. (Yes, that is a bridge, and I walked over it!) See those lovely lines that the boards make? If I had moved my camera up a bit and focused on the PEOPLE instead of the BRIDGE, the lines would have emphasized the people beautifully. The photo is still nice, the composition isn't quite right to call it a lines example.

Only 2 days of this series left...hang in there! Tomorrow is Use of White Space :)

Elements of Composition #6

 The sixth element of composition is....

Frame Your Subject!

It was a bit hard for me to find a photo for this...I didn't have one that was obviously framed, but I came up with these two that will work.

Here I am framing the sky at sunset with the roofs near me...

....and here I am framing a clump of flowers through the a hole in the railing of our deck. 

 It's fun when you find a subject that would work well with a frame... the problem is finding a frame!
Tomorrow's element of composition is Lines.... mysterious....;)
Happy November, by the way!

Spikey Flower

Yes, friends, it is more flower photos today :)

I found these while I was wandering around with my camera, just looking for something to take photos of... They were very interesting!

Bright pink/red, spiky... they had a tropical look to them.

And the buds were beautiful too! :D 

Have a lovely week :)

Illusions

Here are three photos I have taken recently.

I like them but they didn't really fit in any other post...

Trees reflected in a river.

Illusion: It's not really trees :) Just water that is reflecting them! Easy.

This needs a little more explaining. I took a photo looking up through a clump of leaves, but I purposely "unfocused" the photo, so the light looks like little round circles, and the rest is a blur.

 (This trick can be especially beautiful on Christmas lights....I can't wait 'til Christmastime!)

Illusion: Hah! I'll bet you didn't even know what the photo was! *wink*

Whenever we have flowers around the house, I take photos of them. Once, I was taking photos on the railing of our deck, and the flower fell into the stone gutter about a yard down. Now I drop flowers down there just to photograph them because I love the surface. ;D

Illusion: Now, this one isn't completely fair, because I didn't do it with the camera. I did it on the computer. :S The rose was originally yellow, but I was editing the photo a bit, and to my great surprise, the rose turned PINK! Hm. I liked it better than the yellow one.

I know this was kind of a strange post. My apologies.

Hope you have a good day anyway. ;)

Quarter's End

Well, the first quarter in school is almost up... that means that I am halfway through my photography class.

*sniff*

   

It's been wonderful learning how to take a photo manually... you change anything to make the photo look the way you want it! 

I remember trying to take photos manually just 2 or 3 months ago... I got so frustrated because I understood almost nothing about changing the settings, and all my photos turned out blurry, or dark, or overexposed... It was kind of sad, and I was discouraged.

But after just 2 months of studying and working to "get it," I can finally take photos manually. (and understand what I'm doing. That has been one of the most rewarding things in my class so far.

 I'd like to mention this resource:

click button to visit...

This series has been a huge help to me so far! The author, Darcy, writes so clearly and explains everything very well. (Her photography is also amazing!) I highly recommend this for beginner photographers. Or any photographer for that matter. :D I now understand aperture, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and histograms thanks to this website!

31 Days to a Better Photo has been my "textbook" for this course. I've basically gone through two posts each week, and done projects and photography that correspond with the concepts I learned from reading the posts.

There were 3 settings that I learned about that really helped me to understand photography. Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. If you study anything about photography, study those 3 concepts. They are really useful. And essential if you want to get a good photo!