Old Home In The Mountains - HDR

It was a beautiful day and I managed to find an overgrown driveway up to the house that has long been abandoned. Three shots hand-held combined tone-mapped in Photomatix and tweaked in Photoshop CS5.

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Deck View Due East In HDR

This photo was taken with the Sony A100 using three bracket exposure +/- 2 stops and one shot using the the camera determined correct photo. Click on the photo to fill your screen.

Spectacular Sunrise Rendered In Hand-held HDR

Caroline was walking our dog Patch when she called me to look out the office window. The sun was rising rapidly so I grabbed the D90 and rushed out onto the deck and started clicking away. About 15 shots later I realized that this needed HDR treatment.
Because I noted that the shutter speed was very low for taking three photos at the ISO of 200 in aperture mode, I increased it to 800 and set the aperture to f6.5. I then concentrated on a particular cloud to capture the three photos necessary for processing in Photomatix. Yes, I am still using the program to process my HDR photos.
Note that there is still snow on the distant mountains. Be sure to click the thumbnail to fill your screen.

Our Christmas Tree Rendered In HDR

This tree was selected by Caroline from Billy Wilson's tree farm. You can view his farm in HDR in an earlier post. I actually traded for the tree by presenting him with a printed 19x13 copy of the rendered photos that I took in mid October. He actually offered me a few more trees if I wanted them.
This photo took some work but it was worth it -- you do not have to make the journey to the mountains to view its beauty -- just click on the thumbnail to fill your screen.

HDR Using Our Sony A100

Having devoted a majority of my posts to HDR using the Nikon D90, it got me to thinking about how you could accomplish getting the required minimum exposures on the Sony A100.

A little Google search provided the answer. This is how the photo was exposed:

1. I set the exposure mode (metering mode to multiple segment)
2. Attached my shutter release cable.
3. Set the Mode to "P" for program mode -- some refer this to Professional Mode.
4. Note the Aperture called for by the "P" mode.
5. Switch the Mode setting to "A" for aperture and set the aperture to the value noted in 4.
6. Press the A100 AV button on the top rear of the camera and set the AV to -2.0.
7. On a tripod of course, press the shutter button (in my case the shutter release cable).
8. Press the AV button again and set the AV value to 0.0.
9. Press the shutter release button to expose the second photo.
10. Press the AV button again and set the AV value to +2.0.
11. Press the shutter release button to expose the third and final exposure photo.

Now what do you do with these three photos?

I use Photomatix Pro 3.2 to combine the photos into a "tone-mapped image". There are other programs that will perform that function and the new Adobe Photoshop CS5 will do this function too. But my experience with CS5 has been that to achieve the results that I get with Photomatix takes too long and slider settings are not easily interperted. None of CS5's default settings are of interest to me.

My approach to HDR is to increase the camera's ability to see detail in the shadows and the highlights -- and not to try to turn the photo into a "Starwars" image.

There are some impressive "Starwar Images" that I have viewed but it is not for me.

For more information on Photomatix Pro go here: Photomatix Pro.

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Hand-Held HDR Photographs

Both these buildings are located on Hwy 197s heading to Pensacola, NC. I photographed the buildings in HDR hand-held. Both photos consisted of three individual photographs exposed at +/- two stops and an individual photo expose to what the camera computed to be the ideal aperture. Both sets of photos were then processed using Photomatix Pro and then adjusted in Photoshop CS5. The building on the top was an antique outlet that we frequented when the proprietor was still alive. Click on each photo to fill your screen.

Fall Foliage in Western North Carolina

This is Billy Wilson's spread located on Hwy 197s on the way to Asheville over the mountains. This photo was shot in HDR with +/- two stops plus the one the camera says is the correct exposure. The exposures were blended using Photomatix and fine tuned in Photoshop.

It was a beautiful day and with the color changes rapidity it was necessary to forgo a nap to capture the beauty that surrounds us. We are entering the peak of the fall foliage and with forecast winds and rain due the next few days it is essential to keep your camera at the ready. Click to fill your screen.

Early Fall Sunrise Over The Blue Ridge in HDR

I tried tone mapping the three images used for this HDR using the new HDR Pro that is part of PS CS5 but was unable to duplicate the result shown here using Photmatix Pro. The effort required to achieve the result show is much less with Photomatix. Trust me -- take my word for it! Don't forget to click on the image to fill your screen

St Thomas Episcopal Church In HDR Revisited

Dr. David Johnson and I went "birding" this past Friday. It was a long arduous journey that eventually got us to the Blue Ridge Parkway with a pit stop at Mt Mitchell (about 6200 ft +). Last year David agreed to help me photograph our church by providing his pickup truck bed for my tripod.

If you look at my earlier posts you will find my first attempt at HDR for the our church gave the church a Star Wars look -- that was not well received by one of my favorite upper echelon parishioners. Only 80% of those reviewing way-out HDR extremes like it -- the other 20% do not find it appealing at all and my favorite parishioner especially did not find it appealing.

My hope is that this photograph will assist her to forgive me my transgressions.

Friday was a warm sunny day and since David and I did not find any appealing photogenic birds, we decided to attempt another HDR photo-shoot of St Thomas. This, of course, was after descending the Blue Ridge Highway via Hwy 80 where we stopped to have lunch at Hillbilly Ted's (Highly recommended) besto.

Don't forget to click once and sometimes twice to view the new HDR depiction of St Thomas in Burnsville, NC.

High Dynamic Range Photography - HDR

It has been a long cold winter -- the coldest that we have ever experienced here in Western North Carolina in the 12 years we have been this part of the Universe. It all started on 12/18/2009 when the global warming crowd dumped 19 to 20 inches of snow on us. Every other few days additional snow was dumped.

Every now and then I had an opportunity to photograph the surroundings in HDR. Each of the photos consist of three photos photographed with the correct exposure and two additional photos consisting of 2-stops over exposed and 2-stops under exposed. My camera - Nikon D90 allows me to setup the shots using the bracketing function. All three shots were hand-held using multiple exposure function. It's not that difficult. Of course I use some software that automatically blends the three images into a tonemapped image that is further processed in Photoshop CS4.

Click on each image to fill your screen with a view of these magnificent mountains.