Cool photos

[Matt34]

I bought the wife a Nikon D40 for her B-day a couple days ago, hopefully I'll be able to take advantage of it and produce some decent pictures.

 

[Sheep]

You're quite the photographer, Sheep. Truly. I'm impressed.

Thanks, I'm still learning.

I'm trying to install Photoshop CS3 that a friend gave me, but there is some errors in the setup. When I get that installed I should be able to do better HDR images.

SheepStar

 

[j_garcia]

Nice Camaro

FROG:

I may have posted this one earlier, but I like it:

 

[Sheep]

Another HDR Image I took today.

Non HDR image.

SheepStar

 

[emorphien]

Sheep, I'm curious how you're doing your "HDR" process since I'm not really seeing an increase in the visible tonal range (in other words recovered shadows or highlights). What is your process from beginning (shooting) to end?

 

[j_garcia]

You can see it in the leaves and foliage mainly - a lot on the right side. The car itself is harder to see the detail in.

 

[gus6464]

From my experience Photomatix is actually a lot better than Photoshop when it comes to HDR. Are you using the pro version of Photomatix?

Also in your HDR shots how may pics are you taking? A good and somewhat simple rule of thumb with HDR is to take 3 pics with 1 being around 2 f-stops underexposed and the other 2 f-stops overexposed.

 

[DTS]

Heres a few from this years Dayton air show and then some whales at Cape Cod.

 

[Sheep]

It's Photomatix, but just the trail. I finally got CS3 installed and I was screwing around with it, but I'm no expert yet. I also am working with jpeg photos, not RAW.

Any tips for using photoshop (prefer this to Photomatix trial because it doesn't leave a tag)? I used 3 images in the Lexus HDR.

SheepStar

 

[emorphien]

You can see it in the leaves and foliage mainly - a lot on the right side. The car itself is harder to see the detail in.

Yes I see "it" over there but there is actually less shadow detail in that area on the HDR which is counter to the purpose of HDR vs the original image.

I also agree that Photomatix is a better tool to use than Photoshop for doing HDRs and tonemapping (the process that most people recognize as HDR). Sheep, if you took 3 images what were their exposure increments? I recommend doing at least -2 or so, 0 and +2 or so exposures. After that it's also important to begin to recognize where an HDR will actually benefit an image as well as knowing how to slide all the sliders in Photomatix if you want a real looking or convincing image, or even if you don't, you still need to understand to some extent what the sliders are doing so you can pull out all the dynamic range you can if that's your goal.

Heres a few from this years Dayton air show and then some whales at Cape Cod.

500mm lens, do want. Looks like your lens choice and weather worked more in your favor than mine! You even had an F22! We didn't

 

[loserwife]

Heres a few from this years Dayton air show and then some whales at Cape Cod.

Awesome pictures!!!

 

[DTS]

Yes, Sigma 50-500 mm, very nice and versatile lens. from airplanes to whales and much more. F22 was the "main" attraction this year at Dayton, it does some pretty incredible things. My 2nd time seeing, last year was the first, saw it three days in a row at the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends.

Heres a few more "BIGMA" shots

 

[emorphien]

I don't generally use long lenses, so I probably could have gotten by if I had remembered to bring my 2x teleconverter and used it on my 70-200 2.8L. Oops.

Still some day I'm sure I'd like to have a 300 or 400mm prime although at this point I'd probably buy the last of Canon's tilt-shift lenses before considering the 50-500 or anything like it.

 

[Sheep]

Photoshop HDR.

This time I'm using a shot of the sky, as it is probably more dynamic then a car against concrete.

3 shots.

First at F/8. 1/1200th

Second at F/8 1/320th

Third at F/8 1/60th

As stated above, I'm using photoshop, as it leaves no tags. These are also 8.0mp jpeg files, not raw.

This is how they looked merged together.

I read online that you now can adjust the Gamma and exposure, and that gamma should be done first. Then, you do to Local Adaptation and adjust that to your liking, making sure you don't get light rings.

This is what I read online BTW.

Finished product looks like this.

For more surreal effects, you need to put it into Photmatix(CS3 lacks some adjustments that Photomatic has), but since mine is a trial, I don't want to (leaves tags). I'll see what I can do about that in the next week.

SheepStar

 

[gus6464]

Don't do different shutter speeds but f-stops instead. Shutter speed just controls the amount of light whereas f-stops does a lot more (depth of field, sharpness, etc.).

 

[Sheep]

Don't do different shutter speeds but f-stops instead. Shutter speed just controls the amount of light whereas f-stops does a lot more (depth of field, sharpness, etc.).

How do you do F-stops?

SheepStar

 

[emorphien]

f-stops are the aperture settings for your lens.

However whether you should change shutter speed or aperture depends a bit on what you're shooting, I generally prefer to change shutter speeds because changing apertures will change your DOF and can make some HDR mergest come out a bit odd looking.

 

[Sheep]

f-stops are the aperture settings for your lens.

However whether you should change shutter speed or aperture depends a bit on what you're shooting, I generally prefer to change shutter speeds because changing apertures will change your DOF and can make some HDR mergest come out a bit odd looking.

That is what I gathered when I read about it. If you change the Aperture, you're going to lose detail in the distance. I did try one though, it seemed a little bit more vibrant, but I never edited it further.

SheepStar

 

[gus6464]

That is what I gathered when I read about it. If you change the Aperture, you're going to lose detail in the distance. I did try one though, it seemed a little bit more vibrant, but I never edited it further.

SheepStar

That depends on how high of an f-stop you are using. The higher the f-stop the more depth of field and the sharper the detail in the distance will be. For example start out with a higher one at around f/11 and then do -2 and +2. You will notice that you will have a lot more detail in the distance than using a lower one.

 

[jonnythan]

DTS, I'm super, super impressed at how well you've nailed the exposure in all of these images. Fantastic.