I know some are not big fans of HDR. But when you walk into a room such as this what is your best way to capture it? For some I guess it would be to capture as is and let the lighting, textures and shades fall as is. The small hand hand held mini's try for a flash and walk away disappointed. For those who shoot HDR this is a dream come true. Textures, marble, lighting all move the imagination. I personally don't think there is any other way to do this room justice without HDR.
The other issue we have is "The NO Tripod rule". So here we are shooting a Pano HDR, multi upon multi shots hand held. For this shot...18 exposures. Let me explain:
I went with my family to the Natural History museum and knowing that no tripods were permitted, flashes only create bad reflections, and I really didn't like hauling around a backpack. I decided to go with my cheap lens, the 50mm 1.8. Best $100 lens on the books bar none!
The fast lens helped with some shutter speeds that were manageable. Yes the 1.8 doesn't create for great depth of field but hey with life there are always trade offs.
With that all said, you can see the final outcome. Your feed back is greatly appreciated.
Here is my Post Processing, it maybe a little long...sorry
Pano HDR in Camera:
>6 vertical 3 Exposure (+1, 0, -1) Total 18 Exposures, 1/30-1/60-1/125, 50mm, ISO 800
I did a 1EV spread because pushing a 2EV spread would have been hard at the +2 to hold without blur
1st Part of Post Processing:
>Each 3 Segment Vertical brought into Raw
>Black slider to 0, White Balance and Temperature and Tint matched
>Default Sharpening to 0
>Noise Reduction on all
>Saved as Tiffs
>Any Exposures that had to much movement were deleted and replaced by one of the other exposures at the deleted exposures EV.
>Once finished you should have 18 tiff files
Photomatix-Detail Enhancer:
>1st 3 shot Segment brought into Photomatix
>Sliders moved to taste and saved as 16 bit tiffs
>Each additional 3 shot segment brought into Photomatix, since Photomatix saves
previous settings, each panel would get the same settings by default of previous settings and saved.
>Once all 18 shots/6 segments are processed you will end up with 6 panels of the Pano all as 16 bit tiffs.
CS-5:
>All 6 HDR Tiffs brought into CS-5
>1 Panel at a time, starting with the 2nd panel CMD-A (Select All), CMD-C (Copy), CMD-W (Delete)
>Back to 1st panel, CMD-V (Paste),
>Same process for all 5 panels stacked onto the 1st panel
>Choose 1st layer (Background Layer)
>Shift/Click on the Last Layer (5th Layer) Should choose them all
>EDIT-Auto Align Layers, Wait for processing to finish
>EDIT-Auto Blend Layers, Wait for processing to finish
>Flatten Image
>Save Image but don't delete (You save image in the event you mess up somewhere or your CS-5 closes
>Crop or Duplicate and Free Transform to get rid of any white areas
2nd Stage Post Processing:
>Nik Color Efex Pro-Pro Contrast
>Nik Color Efex Pro-Tonal Contrast
>Topaz Adjust-inFocus for global sharpening
>Shadow/highlights-For middle statue alone
>Adjustment Layer Levels-Remove color cast of yellow
>Adjustment Layer Curves-Slight global Contrast
>Left Segment of pillars duplicated, Transform/Flip Vertical and aligned on floor
>Soft Light Mode/ Opacity to choice
>Redo until you move across entire floor with a nice reflection
>Cropped and Framed for posting
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Natural History Museum LA
Friday, March 16, 2012
Your End is my Beginning
The difference of 5 minutes can make the same comp look like a total different photo.
This shot was shot 5 minutes later than the previous post. The previous had more warmth and this had more color. You can choose which one you like the best. As for me It is this one. I always like more blue in my sky, movement of colors in my sunset from yellow to blue.
The Post processing was just about the same maybe a few extra steps in the end.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Dock of the Bay
I haven't been out to shoot in the past few weeks. Actually you feel like you have fallen off the face of the earth when you don't post. Heck, you feel like total rust when you don't get out to shoot at all. It really is nice to get out and just walk around looking for something to shoot, I would have been happy coming away with nothing, just being out with the water and the wind, stopping and enjoying the sight was well worth the trip.
The Shot itself:
This was taken down in Balboa, California. I parked pretty close to this area and saw this scene when I first arrived but decided to walk around for about an hour and a half looking for something to shoot and waiting for the sky to get right. Once the sun started to set I headed back to my original spot. The wind was blowing pretty heavily so I really was waiting for the sun to go down enough to get some wind swept streaking clouds. But with wind swept clouds comes many, many blurry boats. To many to process those shots. I did go with some faster shutter speeds thinking the boats were going to be to blurry.
This shot was taken at the very North end of the Balboa fun zone looking over the bay and the sunset. The rough water and sun shining on the water made for a nice composition of color and light.
The Shot:
>Standard 3 shot HDR, -2, 0, +2 with a +1 and -1 made from the OEV shot.
>F/11, 1/4-1/15-1/60 of a second, ISO 50, 24-105L @ 24mm
Post Processing:
>0EV duplicated to make -1 and +1
>All combined in Photomatix-Detail Enhancer (Exif info for settings)
>Saved as Tiff
CS-5:
>Command J-Duplicate-clone out all dust and dirt marks
>Topaz Adjust-Enhance Detail and Color
>Topaz Infocus-Global Sharpening
>Nik Color Efex Pro-Tonal Contrast-below horizon line
>Lab Color-Curves (A and B channels) Opacity 17%
>Adjustment Layer-Warm Color Filter
>Cropped (Took me forever to get a crop I liked)
>Nik Color efex Pro-Bright/Dark- Bring bright out in center and darken edges-slight vignette
>Sized and Framed for posting