Picture of the Week 7-30-2009
July 29, 2009
I chose this week’s picture from our archives but I chose to run it through Photomatix. This shot is one of my favorite photos that Bryan took when we visited Burnet, Texas in 2007. The shot was already very colorful but I thought if I made it an HDR photo I could make it pop even more. This is a single shot so in order to make it HDR I merged the original correctly exposed RAW file with RAW files of the same image where I overexposed and underexposed by 1 F stop. I know it sounds confusing but it’s actually very easy and look at the result. In order to grasp how awesome HDR is I put the before and after photos. Enjoy!
After
Before
Photo Info: Taken with the Canon Rebel XT at ISO 100 at F5.6 at 1/320 of a second.
Picture of the Week 7-24-2009
July 23, 2009
This week’s photo is a special treat. Bryan and I went to Crystal Cove this past weekend to take some sunset shots and to try out our new polarizing filter. We set up the tripod high up on the bluffs and shot away. Bryan decided to use the Auto Exposure Bracketing setting on our camera so he could do HDR images. We have only recently dabbled in HDR but we decided to go ahead and purchase Photomatix Pro so we could really experiment. If you don’t know, HDR (high dynamic range) is where you take multiple exposures of one image and merge them into one. Taking the best parts of all exposures to make one “super exposure”. Okay I just made up “super exposure” but seriously the photos look awesome. Below is a photo Bryan took and made into an HDR image. What a sunset!
We ended up making a bunch of these HDR images and put them up in the GALLERY. Check them out!
Photo Info: Taken with the 5D Mark II. 1st Exposure- ISO 250 at F8 and 1/640 of a second. 2nd Exposure- ISO 250 at F8 and 1/1600 of a second. 3rd Exposure- ISO 250 at F8 and 1/250 of a second.
Picture of the Week 7-14-2009
July 14, 2009
I’ve been really busy the past few weeks with moving so I haven’t been able to go out and photograph as much as I would like. So for this week’s photo I had to go back in the archives. This photo was taken way back in February 2006 when we used to live in Pomona. We used to live on the third floor with a balcony that overlooked Holt Blvd. Even back then I seemed to have a fascination with shooting sunsets. I’m sure it’s not good for me to be shooting directly into the sun but how else would I have gotten this shot? I believe at the time this sunset was made even more spectacular by the fact that a fire was producing a huge smoke cloud. Photography Hint: Sunsets are made better by smoke from wildfires. Anyway, enjoy this weeks photo and hopefully next week I’ll have something brand new.
Photo Info: Shot with the Canon Rebel XT at ISO 400, F16 and 1/500 of a second.
Picture of the Week 6-25-2009
June 25, 2009
This week’s photo subject is the Mandalay Bay hotel. I shot this last weekend after our trip to the Shark Reef Aquarium. As we walked down the hallway we stopped to look at the impressive water park style pool and luckily I looked up and saw this shot. The clouds were perfect and the reflections just made it all the more spectacular. Can you tell I shot this through a window?
Photo Info: Taken with the 5D Mark II at ISO 200, F8 at 1/500 of a second.
Shark Reef Aquarium
June 23, 2009
This past weekend we drove out to Las Vegas. Since we got there late on Friday night and left on Sunday morning we really only got a full day to do stuff. We gambled, we ate, we watched a movie, we ate, we hit up the jacuzzi and we ate some more but one of the highlights of the trip was the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. We took our friends Claudia and Jimmy along with us which was cool because they had never been to that aquarium before. This aquarium is smaller than some of the aquariums we’ve been to in California but don’t be fooled by it’s size because it’s main attraction, the shark exhibit, is a 1.3 million gallon tank and the whole place has over 2,000 animals inside. Even though our trip to Vegas was short we all had fun walking through the aquarium and taking our awesome group photo (see below). Of course no trip to Vegas would be complete without a visit to Dunkin’ Donuts, Bryan ended up buying a great souvenir T-shirt.
Unfortunately that Great White is not real.
Who has two thumbs and likes Dunkin Donuts? This guy does!
Picture of the Week 6-18-2009
June 18, 2009
Earlier this month I decided to experiment with long exposure shots. I chose the full moon as my subject. I set my camera up on a tripod and pointed it at the sky. The moon is very difficult to photograph, at least for me. It’s constantly moving, which means your shutter speed can’t be too long or else the moon will be blurred. I had to use a remote to release the shutter so I wouldn’t shake the tripod in any way. The thing I liked about the sky that night was the clouds around the moon and the eerie way they were being lit. Ideally I wanted a perfect moon exposure and a perfect cloud exposure in the same shot. However, there are limitations to what you can get the camera to do so I just had to settle for a happy medium between the two. As you can see in the shot below the moon is overexposed on one side but I love the way the clouds look.
Photo Info: Taken with the 5D Mark II at ISO 200, F4 at a 1.6 second shutter speed.