Photo Of The Day

This is an HDR photograph I did recently. The scene is a wooden walkway over the water in  the Japanese Gardens located in the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. This was a 3 bracketed exposure and then processed in the NIK HDR Pro software.

Clicking on the photo will open it much larger in a new window so you can view it better.

Photo Of The Day

This is an HDR Photo that was taken just a few minutes before sunrise this past Sunday morning after a overnight spring snow. This is the Watershed Nature Center where I live in Edwardsville IL.

Clicking on the photo will open it larger in a new window for better viewing.

Have a great weekend!

SCOTT

Watershed Nature Center

Photo Of The Day

This is a HDR photograph I did of an abandon and crumbling building I did in Jerome AZ. Jerome is an old mining town that sits high up in the mountains. The mine is closed and the town has serious mine subsidence problems and is literately sliding off the mountain in places. The town has become a haven for artists and there are quite a few unique shops and galleries. I was just walking the streets when I passed this building. I took a 3 exposure bracketed series hand held. I used a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 24-105 mm f4L IS lens. Since I did not have a tripod I dialed my ISO up to 800 to have a high shutter speed on all three of the exposures to minimize camera shake. The bracketed photos were processed in the NIK HDR Pro software.

I have no idea what used to be in this building but I loved the architecture. If you click on the photo it will open larger in another widow.

Unknown Abandon Building, Jerome AZ.

Photo of the Day

Well I had presidents day off on Monday and was going to bum around St. Louis all day and just take photos. The weather was cold and rainy so this forced me to think about going indoors. Well I stopped at one of my favorite places, the St. Louis Zoo. Due to the weather the zoo was virtually deserted and most of the animals that were suppose to be outside were inside or in hiding. The zoo has an amazing carousel that is located outside with all the animals being wild animals insread of the normal carousel horses. So I stopped and did some bracketed shots and processed them in the NIK HDR software.  I love how the HDR software can take a fairly bland set  bracketed photos and turn it into a piece of artwork.

St. Louis Zoo Carousel



St. Louis Carousel in HDR

I have recently started working with HDR software. HDR software has improved immensely in the past couple years. HDR still draws criticism from a lot of photographers, but I think it is here to stay. For me, certain subjects really look great in the over the top surreal look HDR can create.

On Friday morning I went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens Butterfly House in Faust Park. I had intended to do some macro butterfly photography. Well my bad luck streak struck again, as I found out they were closed for maintenance until the next day.  So I had to switch gears and think of something else to photograph. Located inside a climate controlled building near the butterfly house is the restored St. Louis Carousel.   The carousel was built by the Dentzel Company of Philadelphia in the 1920's. The carousel was installed in 1929 at the Forest Park Highlands. When the Highlands burned to the ground in 1963 the carousel was the only thing left standing.

The carousel was purchased by a private individual and donated to the St. Louis County Parks. The carousel was operated at Sylvan Spring Park until 1980. The carousel was restored to it's original beauty and moved inside to Faust Park in 1987.

I went over to the carousel building and shot numerous bracketed shots to do some HDR processing. These were all done in the NIK HDR Pro software.

If you click on a photo it will open larger in a new window. This allows you to better see the amazing colors and detail that can be brought out with HDR software.

  
Scott

Photo of the Day

This is one of my favorite shots that I have processed in the NIK HDR Software that I have been experimenting with. Taken this past October while I was at the Grand Canyon, the weather for that visit had been terrible. Gray days with heavy clouds that obscured the sun totally. The HDR software allowed me to pull out all the detail and color possible.

South Rim, Grand Canyon

Photo of the Day.

I am still working with the trial version of the NIK HDR Software. I am posting 2 photos today to show the power of HDR to create really compelling photographs. I was using a Canon 5D Mark II that I had on loan from Canon Professional Services. I used a Canon 16-35 f2.8L II lens on a tripod to take an automatic 3 shot bracketed exposure from my camera. The scene is the Bartlett Reservoir located in the Tonto National Forest near Cave Creek, Arizona. The setting for the auto bracketed exposure was for the camera to shoot a best guess exposure with the camera at 100 ISO, f16, and evaluative metering. Then the next exposure will be 2 stops under exposed, and the third exposure will be 2 stops over exposed.  Focus is set manually, and the camera is set to continous shooting mode. Use a cable shutter release and hold it down until the camera has taken all three exposures.



The first photo I am posting here is the best guess exposure straight out of the camera with no additional processing. 



Best guess single exposure JPEG file



HDR Image after processing



Even processing the best single exposed RAW file in CS5 will not give me the detail and tonal range I was able to do with the HDR software. As I have stated before, I like doing HDR from the natural look all the way to the craziest stuff imaginable. It just depends on what you want to do. It will take a lot of practice, failues, trial and error, and much more learning, but I am afraid I am a true HDR convert. Now when I look at a subject or scene to photograph, I will also consider the possibility of doing it as an HDR.  

Scott   

Photo of the Day

Grand Canyon, South Rim View

This is a 3 shot bracketed exposure that I took this past fall from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. The photo was processed in the newest version of the NIK HDR Software. It had been a very cloudy grey day and the light was flat and colors were really muted. I have been experimenting and trying different HDR software programs to see what works best for me. Although Photoshop CS5 has improved their HDR software a lot since CS4, it still will not truly tone map and allow you the control that other programs do. The goal on this shot was to keep the photo as natural looking as possible. I do like the really crazy results you can create with HDR software. For me it just depends on the subject matter and what I am trying to produce. For a stunning landscape such as the Grand Canyon I want the natural "what I saw" look. I have tried the Photomatix HDR software (version 3) which has been the best out  there for a long time and was considered by many as the gold standard for HDR. When I am done with my trial version of the NIK software I will try the newest Phtomatix version before I decide and purchase a software for my future HDR use.

Photo of the Day

South Rim View, Grand Canyon National Park

This is a bracketed 3 shot exposure and processed in the new NIK HDR Software. The weather that day was very cold, cloudy, and windy. The light was flat and colors were very muted to the normal eye. I think this turned out better than any single exposure that I could process in Photoshop CS5.