Business Travel
I’ve been doing a bit of traveling lately with work. Although I don’t like being away from my wife, I do get excited about seeing parts of the country that I’m not familliar with. No matter what the shoot is for, I can usually sneak away to take a few fun photos just for myself.
We have a division in Alliance, Nebraska. Now you may think you’ve been to the middle of nowhere before, but until you’ve been to Alliance – you haven’t. I was born in Nebraska, and I have family in Nebraska, so I thought I knew what it would be like. But the “panhandle” is worse than Kansas. Anyway, Alliance has a world-famous tourist attraction: Carhenge. It looks just like Stonehenge but, you guessed it, built with cars. I thought it would be a fun spot for an HDR, and I was lucky enough to happen upon it near sunset (just after actually, but it worked out thanks to Lightroom 3’s noise reduction).
"Carhenge" in Alliance, NE (2-exposure HDR)
More recently, work sent me to Clarksville, TN where we have a big railroad construction job going on. We built a bridge across a creek there, and I was trying to take photos of it. I saw that nearby there were tall stacks of bundled up railroad ties. They were in the perfect spot for me to get some good elevation, and look down on the roadbed we had put across the bridge. So I climed up these tar-covered planks (further ruining my jeans) to get a good shot. It was a great shot of the bridge, but when I was up there I found the ties to be much more interesting. The blackened wood and harsh shadows prompted me to take this as a 3-exposure HDR.
- Obviously I modified in Photoshop, but after climbing up there that’s how it felt!
Sidetracked
Yesterday I set out on a 3-hour drive to one of our locations in Kentucky to try to capture next year’s calendar photo (2009 photo, 2010 photo). We had a very specific shot in mind for the late evening, so I had a bit of extra time to explore the countryside, and perhaps collect a few pretty pictures. But after the shoot was over and I was on my way back to the hotel, I passed a scene that was the prettiest I saw all day. A gorgeous sunset lightly illuminated a farm that was quite a distance from the road I was on. I did a U-turn and parked. Luckily I had the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L plus a 1.4x teleconverter with me from the shoot. I knew that the sky, though not seeming very bright to my eyes, would overpower the dim farm. I took 5 photos from a tripod with different shutter speeds – dark to light. Today when I got home I merged them into an HDR photo, and did some split toning in Lightroom 3.
5-exposure HDR, then processed in Lightroom 3
Accidental Captures
I absolutely love it when I’m just goofing around and somehow a cool photo happens. Here I am, sitting at my desk experimenting with Lightroom 3 Beta 2. I was toying with the tethered shooting feature, and I just clicked the shutter release button within the application and the camera went off in my hand. That’s nothing new, right? But it came out with a pretty cool photo (at least, I think so)! It’s ISO 1600 on a little Rebel XTi. You can see that the noise reduction in the new version is going to be AMAZING. Click Here to see the full-size image. I can’t wait for the full version of LR3 to come out!
Accidental Capture
Lightroom HDR
For Easter weekend, Veronica and I went up to Ohio to hang out with family and friends there. Friday was way too beautiful to spend the car trip with the windows up. It’s fun to see Pita through my side-view mirror enthralled by the ever-changing scenery.
Pita gazing out the car window.
On Saturday we went to the Cincinnati Zoo with our nieces. It was kinda rainy, but I got a couple fun shots anyway like this one of the elephant house. When I was processing this in Lightroom, I pushed up the fill light and the clarity (and a few other adjustments) which gave it an HDR look because I compressed the tonal range. It got me wondering, what is it that qualifies an image as an HDR or a pseudo-HDR? Do you have to use Photomatix or Photoshop? I think that, based on the concept of High Dynamic Range imaging, Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW can produce Pseudo-HDR images by pushing up Fill Light and Recovery. I’ve seen some debates about this, but it seems like those who disagree don’t fully understand what a RAW file is and how programs like Photomatix only combine JPEGs (or converts RAWs to JPEGs and then combines) to achieve HDR images.
HDR produced from a single RAW file with Adobe Lightroom
You can't convince me that this isn't an HDR.
The RAW Format Cube Principle
Midway is a cute little town in Central Kentucky. We have a railroad track that runs right through the middle of downtown, so it has been a popular location for train photo shoots. This is a “Pseudo HDR” of a cute little building there.
"Pseudo HDR" taken in Midway, KY
I took this photo in RAW format which means that the camera records all the image exposure data coming through the lens without compressing it to a JPEG. I like to describe a RAW file as a cube of image data, whereas a JPEG is a plane within that cube.
A RAW file is like a cube of exposure data, and a JPEG is a sample from that.
Photoshop and Lightroom are used to process RAW files. When you adjust the exposure, you’re essentially moving that plane back and forth within the cube.
This principle relates to HDR photography techniques. Traditionally, a photographer will shoot a scene in JPEG format at several different exposures to create this range of exposure data. Using special software like Photomatix the images can be blended together. But it can also be done using a single RAW file. Essentially, for each pixel in the image the software will search the dynamic range for a midtone and use that exposure setting for that pixel. So in other words, it’s adjusting the exposure for each pixel. With this method, shaded areas are exposed properly and bright areas are exposed properly.
I always shoot in RAW format. I don’t always make HDR images with them, but it’s very practical to be able to tweak exposure and contrast in a way that is more effective than just darkening/lightening pixels. Shooting in RAW has saved my bacon on more than one occasion!
Photogrativity 