Blue Hour Safety Harbor

Monday night as usual, I went to my Monday Night Meetup with my friends. Since it's been so hot lately, we've been going to the restaurant and eating first, then going back down to the Marina to shoot.

We waited through the sunset for the blue hour. That's when I got this shot. I processed it 3 ways; the first way was using my normal post processing, then I tried the Orton Effect, which is a technique I used to use a couple of years ago. I didn't like that effect at all. I liked my normal processing, except the shadows were blocked under the docks and I wanted to bring them out.

So, I turned to HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range processing. Our eyes can see an infinite amount of levels of light, while cameras can only see about 5 levels. What that means is that there's always a give and take situation. Either you expose for the highlights, which results in shadows that are pitch black with no detail, or you expose for the shadows and the highlights are pure white with no detail. It's up to the photographer to decide what's more important in his/her shot. With HDR, a photographer can have it all.

After viewing all three processes, I chose the HDR version to be the best. Anyway, at least that's my opinion. With art, it's all in what the viewer likes. It's subjective to interpretation based on one's personal preferences. There is no right or wrong.

Playing Around With HDR

This scene was made at John Chestnut Park in Palm Harbor. If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know I love to photograph bridges and I love this one.

The scene was kind of bleak, so I decided to play around with it in Photomatix. It was a 3-shot combination at eV +1, 0 and -1. I combined the RAW files in Photomatix, then brought it back into Lightroom to tweak it a bit more.

While I'm not a fan of artsy HDR, I do like natural-looking HDR and this was the effect I was going for here. I've posted this before, but not on this blog. I would like a good critique from some of you other photographers out there. I'm particularly interested in what your initial impression of the shot is and any suggestions you can think of that would be helpful.

Thank you all in advance. I'm looking forward to your response.

HDR

Well, I've bit the bullet and decided to try to do some HDR. I don't really know what I'm doing, so anyone out there with advice, is more than welcome to make a comment.

I don't like the HDR "look", but some of the stuff I've been seeing lately is downright beautiful when it's done right. I like HDR that doesn't look like HDR. This is my second one that I've tried. I'm still sitting on the block with this one, though.

This second shot (in silhouette) is the original. I shot this one at 0 ev, then one at +2 and one at -2. I think the sky doesn't look that different, but there's a lot of detail in the minaret that I was able to pull out.

What do you all think?

Causeway Memorial Bridge 3

This image was taken the same day as the other two I posted, except it was taken before dark when the sky was a pure white overcast. There was no interest in the sky and no interest in the photo. The original is pretty blah, if I say so myself.

While I was reading Rick Sammon's tweet on Twitter, he challenged everyone to create an illusion using a plug-in and post it on his facebook and his site. It's not a contest, just a challenge. Since I don't have many plug-ins and the ones I have I've never had occasion to use until today. I couldn't figure out how to use the one I just won. I'll have to spend some time with the tutorials from AutoFx.com to learn how to use it.

In the meantime, I had to do something, so I came up with this. I almost deleted the original, but something told me it would be perfect for fooling around in Photoshop and/or Lightroom so I loaded Dynamic HDR and ran the pseudo HDR twice on it. This is what I came up with. I think it looks a whole lot better than the original.

Here's the original:
What do you think?

Safety Harbor Marina

I'm still experimenting with HDR processing of my photos and I thought I'd compare them side-by-side to see which I like better. The photo on the left of Safety Harbor Marina at sunset is HDR, while the one on the right was processed normally in PhotoShop.

Both were from the same shot, both exposed in RAW format. The difference is with the HDR photo, I put the camera on a tripod and created 3 shots: 1 normal exposure, 1 underexposed by 2 stops and the other 1 overexposed by 2 stops. The normally processed photo was the middle shot with no over or under exposure.

I'm still trying to decide which way I prefer. I guess HDR has its place, maybe for architecture and interior work. I'll just have to keep playing with it until I can make up my mind.

Any comments?

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Loyce