New Zealand in HDR

I wanted to post an up-to-date photo to hopeully show the improvement that has come from a year and a half of HDR.

This shot was taken just after new year at Hamilton Gardens

Arches (Click for full size)

Apart from the normal Photomatix processing, this image has been manipulated in several other ways:

1. There were many people about this day, as it was glorious and also the 2nd Jan so everyone was on holiday. I took two sets of three autobracketed shots. These were processed to two HDR images using the same settings. I used Photoshop to pick out the parts from each image where there were no people. In a few cases both shots had people and I had to color-in or clone areas to erase all signs of people.
2. I used Topaz Adjust and Topaz Detail to process the images. In most cases I created a background copy layer, processed the top layer then mixed the processed and unprocessed layers to tone down the processing.
3. I created several (4) images, each processed in a different way. Then I stacked them all up and picked the best parts. For example, one image had the best brickwork. One had the best ground. One the best sky. And in some cases I mixed from more than one image.

I think the shot works as it’s a strong shot to start with. It has interesting shapes and light. The HDR processing just adds to this.

After getting my EOS 450D I soon started lusting after new lenses. I saw a bargain on our local version of ebay (Trademe) for an EF-S 10-22mm. It was water damaged and going for a giveaway price. It said in the advert that it worked fine apart from some blurring

However I soon discovered that the operation was intermittent. Sometimes it would work fine, but most of the time it went crazy; the autofocus hunted and the aperture showed random numbers. So I sent it to the local Canon agent for service. Two weeks later it was returned as unrepairable.

So I took the lens apart. Managed to clean it so that the glass was all clear and the blurring was gone. But I could not get the electronics working, despite cleaning it very carefully. I was about to despair when someone on a forum suggested I ask Canon if they could supply a spare PCB. I asked them and they said they could, and for a very reasonable price, less than $100. So I ordered one and a few days later had a perfectly working EF-S 10-22mm lens, for a fraction of the new price.

Here’s one of the early shots I took with it.

Waitangi Falls (Click for full size)

This is Waitangi Falls near to Waiuku.

The 10-22mm has become one of my favorite lenses. You do need to know how to use it though. One of the secrets is to get really close to things (like almost touching the lens). If you don’t you just get images where everything seems a long way away.

I’ve been taking HDR pictures for about a year and a half now, since mid 2008.

I heard about this technique where you could merge several exposures to compensate for the lack of dynamic range of digital sensors. Being a geek I found this interesting and searched the web for more information. I came across Trey Ratcliff’s Portfolio. He also produces StuckInCustoms a photoblog that has new pictures daily. The pictures on his sites blew my mind. I’d never seen photos look like this before. They were so real; so beautiful and so evocative.

I had to have some of this.

It was obvious that Trey was a talented photographer, regardless of the HDR processing. I knew I would not be able to take photos that came close to his, but I thought I should be able to process pictures as well as him; being a (world class) geek has it’s advantages.

So I started by reading the StuckInCustoms HDR Tutorial, which I recommend to anyone. I learned about bracketing, Photmatix and much more. Soon afterwards I had downloaded the free trial of Photomatix and was taking some test shots to process.

At the time I had a “SuperZoom” Panasonic Lumix camera. This had the facility to auto-bracket. I thought it was a pretty good camera (at the time). But it soon became apparent that although I could learn the processing fairly easily, the art of taking good pictures was quite tricky.

I started looking around the web for tips on how to improve your photography. Composition was a key thing I learned about, something I’d all but ignored in the past.

One of my first photo expiditions was to my local park. This picture of the pond is one of the first HDR shots that I considered good enough to show people.

Pond in Pukekohe (Click for full size)

The seagulls were kind enough to sit still for the whole 3 exposures. (By the way, this is what mid winter looks like in New Zealand, or at least where I live, which is just south of Auckland in the north island)

Also around this time I went to a friend’s bithday outing. We went to a Gun Club to have some fun shooting clay pigeons. This was in fact a lot of fun, firing real shotguns and even managing to hit some targets.

At the end of this the sun was going down so I whipped out the camera, still my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20, and tripod, and took some pictures of the setting sun.

Gunclub Carpark (Click for full size)

Now although this was not a great shot, it did have some of the “evocative” quality that I was seeking. For instance, the way the orange of the sunset fades into the misty treeline. Or the way you can almost feel the crunchy-ness of the carpark gravel.

This was going to be fun; learning to produce good HDRs.

It was time to get a proper camera…