Picture of the Week 9-24-2009
September 24, 2009
I am using an older picture that I’ve posted on my blog before to show how awesome Photomatix is. I’ve been taking a lot of old photos and making them into HDR images. I didn’t think I would get so obsessed with it, but it does make the images pop that much more. I’m actually going to show the three images that I used to create the final HDR image. I cheated a little bit by using only one image and saving it at different exposure instead of actually doing Auto Exposure Bracketing in my camera. But the result is still the same.
Photo Info: Photo underexposed by 1 full stop
Photo Info: Photo perfectly exposed at ISO 100, F16, 1/100.
Photo Info: Photo overexposed by 1 full stop
Photo Info: Three above photos combined to make HDR image.
Picture of the Week 9-15-2009
September 15, 2009
Hey look what’s back, it’s picture of the week! I can’t believe it’s been more than a month since I posted one of these. Honestly my August was crazy and I just didn’t shoot that much. We recently purchased an Adventure Pass that allows us to get into many Orange County parks. One of our new favorite parks is Peters Canyon, located off of Jamboree Road and very close to our house. We have been hiking a lot lately which is a lot more fun when we bring Mimi the cattle dog along. Most of the time we hike after work which is when the sun starts to go down. The lighting during this time is beautiful and the past few days the clouds were being very photogenic. This week’s photo is a shot from one of our after work hikes. I’ve taken the liberty to put it through Photomatix and make it into an HDR. This photo was shot hand held which I don’t recommend when doing HDR because as you can see the objects don’t align perfectly but I still love the results!
Photo Info: Shot with the 5D Mark II. Comprised of three photos. Photo 1- ISO 500, F8 at 1/400 of a second. Photo 2- ISO 500, F8 at 1/800 of a second. Photo 3- ISO 500, F8 at 1/200 of a second. I also used a polarizing filter for a more dramatic effect.
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 7-1-2009
July 1, 2009
