Just returned from two weeks in Spain
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Spent two weeks photographing Spain. The pain in Spain fell mainly on my knees. Time for some knee replacements.
But in spite of any problems, I came home with some good photography of both old and new architecture.
See: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=202563&id=548344699&l=9a11ddb0daThen my wife and I return to the USA. She travels on a Venezuelan passport under her maiden name. My passport says "Made in the USA."
My wife flys right through customs with no problem. They take my passport and throw it in a red envelope and say, "Follow me." Not a good sign. So I sit in a back room for half an hour and they call my name. I go to the counter and they say,"Where were you and for how long?" I reply "Spain for two weeks." The agent stamps my passport and shoves it over to me, turns his back and walks away with no explanation.
When I catch up with my wife she is looking exceedingly worried, but "ingenioso hidalgo" that I am, I said, "Since you were traveling under your maiden name and I am twelve years older than you, they thought they had me for trafficking in beautiful women."
Ha! Talk about saying the right thing at the right time. I am still living off the credit I got for that one.
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Roger,
Thanks for sharing such exquisite pictures and entertaining commentary
If you don't mind me asking, do you post-pro your photos? I find that my (ameteur) photos are much more well received if I crop and color correct them. -
@d12dozr said:
Roger,
Thanks for sharing such exquisite pictures and entertaining commentary If you don't mind me asking, do you post-pro your photos? I find that my (ameteur) photos are much more well received if I crop and color correct them.
Yes, I do a lot of post pro on my photos. First of all photographic realism is not realism as my eye has a far greater dynamic range than my digital camera. A good example is the photo of the gate taken from inside the tunnel. When I exposed for the outside the sun light on the cobbles inside the tunnel burned out the highlights and totally killed the texture. So I took two photos and combined them. One photo is exposed for the exterior scene. The other photos is exposed for the cobbles inside the gate. Once that was combined I also did perspective correction inside PhotoShop. This is a process I would have formerly done with the swings and tilts of a large format camera. I don't take pictures as much as I build pictures.Now if I was doing pure journalism, I would be playing by a different set of rules. But photographers have always struggled to control the dynamic range of their film (from Ansel Adams and Minor White with their Zone System) to press photographers hurried dodging and burning to pull faces out of shadows.
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@roger said:
I don't take pictures as much as I build pictures.
Ah-ha, I like that...similar to how a 3D artist composes a scene. I see I need to learn how to composite HDR images, I have trouble with blown-out pictures.
Thanks for the insight
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Quick and dirty guide to HDRI.
Put the camera on a tripod (not absolutely necessary, but gives the best results). Make three exposures - one right on, one a half to a stop over, and a third a half to a stop under. Layer the three exposures on top of each other in PhotoShop. Keep the ideal exposure on top, then the brightest exposure in the middle and turn off the darkest layer at the bottom. Working on your ideal layer, erase through the darkest empty shadows and this will reveal shadows that are showing some detail in your middle layer. Now flatten your ideal and middle (brightest) layer. Now you are left with a good exposure that has increased shadow detail. Now turn on (make visible) the bottom underexposed layer. Its strongest highlights have less exposure so they should have highlight detail. With your ideal layer (with improved shadows) still on top start erasing through any blown out highlights thus revealing the highlight detail from the slightly underexposed bottom layer. You first try might be just so so but the more you do the better the results will get.
Now if you think about the process you will realize this is the digital version of the zone system and that the down side that if anything moves between exposures you may have some problems. Many modern DSLRs will auto bracket (You hit the shutter once and the camera will make a bracket with one over, one on and one under in about a half a second for short exposures.
But lets say you only have one good exposure to work with. All is not lost. Some is lost but not all. Make three copies of your original. Leave one alone. Then use "adjust layers" inPhotoShop and darken one exposure and lighten the other exposure. This will not cure the deepest shadows nor the totally blown out highlight, but it will deal with those intermediate areas where some detail is still missing.
And then you can always go to flat out retouching and detail creation for your worst case scenarios.
Hope this helps. If you get stuck don't hesitate to ask for some help. I think once you try the basics, you will always have HDRI in mind every time you shoot.
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Thanks for the detailed tips, Roger. I just have a little 3MP Kodak
without exposure controls so I'll try your second method.Cheers!
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Marcus, I have a feeling there might be some controls that you over looked either in the form of physical buttons or as part of a screen selection that will not let you select an exact exposure, but will let you brighten or darken your sensor-selected exposure. It might say brightness/darkness or just be a button with a +/- toggle or a picture of the moon and a sun. I could even do this on an old 1 megapixel consumer camera. Play with the camera a bit and look around on the controls. Still have the manual (RTFM
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Haha, right you are Roger...its the second item in the menu. I'll definitely try that. Thank you!
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Marcus, if you do an HDRI, send me a before and after, I am keen to see what you come up with.
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