HDR at Potato Point

A couple of weekends ago, Simone and I headed to Potato Point (on the NSW coast, near Tuross) for a weekend away with another couple. This gave me a great opportunity to get some great shots of the beach. I took the opportunity to experiment with High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography for the first time.

For those who haven't noticed, HDR is all the range these days, with everything from simple point and click camera's to mobile phones often having an automated HDR capability built in. Despite this, I still think there is something to be said for doing it the "old fashioned" way. Let me explain.

HDR essentially means capturing a greater range of light than would typically be possible with a single shot. The effects are usually vibrant and striking, and can often have a quite surrealist feel.

To create this effect, 2 or more photos are taken (usually three) at different exposure levels. On an SLR, you need to use a function called "exposure bracketing" and the camera will automatically take all three pictures for you in quick succession. A tripod or study rock are essential, as is a remote or using the 2second timer to take the pictures (to avoid shakes).

I tend to space my three photos using pretty standard exposure settings. The first shot is -2, the second is 0 and the third is +2. With this range of shots, you are almost guaranteed to get some good HDR results. This aside, framing a good photo is still essential, which I think is often forgotten with HDR, especially as the capability becomes more commonplace. The colours are usually so vivid and bold that it may be easy to forget to compose a good shot. Hopefully I managed!

To actually merge my 3 pics together, I used software called Photomatix. This video isn't by me, but should give you a good idea:

Essentially, I simply loaded up my pics, kept pressing next, then eventually cycled through the pre-set examples until I found a result I liked. A detailed written tutorial is available here. I have also tried Photoshop for HDR, but the pre-set capabilities of Photomatix make it a far better choice!

So the results? See below. Some of the colours may have gone a little too far, but overall I am happy with the result. I realise they may have a somewhat "fake" look about them, but for my first try I am quite satisfied!

One image out of many...

On Monday, Simone and I returned from 3 weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia. It was an amazing holiday, as every city we visited could have easily been in a different country. Temperatures ranged from close to 40 to below zero, the climate ranged from tropical mountains to flooded plains, and the weather varied from bright sunny days to weeks of rain and cloud.

All in all, it was not only a great chance to see an amazing part of the world, but I was fortunate enough to be able to take my SLR along for the journey and catch some amazing shots. You can check out a selection of my shots (I decided to choose just over 100 from the 1600 I took) on my Google+ profile here. I have also uploaded a smaller selection onto my Flickr account (see above).

I will surely write a few blogs about some specific shots I took over the coming weeks, but in the meantime, I decided to experiment with creating a single image, utilising the 1000+ images I took. Everyone has seen this done before, especially in advertising circles, but  I thought I would give it a go, with the Vietnamese flag featuring as the prominent over-arching image.

Confused as to what I'm talking about? Well check out the result:
(click the image to open it for a better view)

Overall, I was impressed with how the image turned out and how quick and easy it was to achieve such effective results. If you want to give it a shot yourself, simply follow this tutorial. I used the PC software, so would be interested to know how the Mac equivalents work, or what others experiences are like. I for one, will  be trying this again!

Eclipse - My fav shot

After a bit of playing about and cropping of shots from the eclipse, I have decided that this is my favourite: