Over Thanksgiving break, while at Fairmont Hot Springs, BC, CAN, I decided to try – once again – some High Dynamic Range. I have tried it in the past, and I really want to improve my ability, and work on not over editing them.

This photo to the right was shot looking up a stream/river (what ever it is called) handheld at 1/2 sec. to get the effect of moving water (the blurred ness of it).

I cheated and simply created three jpegs with different exposures of the RAW image instead of using three RAW images. This was simply because my tripod wasn’t handy and the motion would ultimately cause some trouble. These images were put through Photomatix, then into Photoshop for some tone correcting due to weirdness of Photomatix.

This image is also on flickr… Where it has received an average of 8.1/10 from the Score Me! group.

The image was shot with the following:

• Shutter: 1/2 sec.
• Aperture: f/22
• ISO: 100
• Camera: Canon 50D
• Lens: Canon 28-135mm

This second photo was actually bracketed, with separate images for each exposure (not cheating this time). I feel that this one turned out a little bit better on the editing side. I feel that this one has been edited less, so it looks more natural. I really is amazing how HDR really brings out the colors in an image, as you can see below in the originals, there was virtually no color in the original image, but it was brought out when combined.

This image had separate values for each exposure:

• Shutter: 1/40, 1/160, 1/10
• Aperture: f/8
• ISO: 100

Out of all of the photos that I took, there really weren’t too many that would work well with HDR, so I just left them out. Below are the originals, contact sheet, and a epic-failed-edit of another photo. I invested a lot of time editing these, from shooting them, going through the fails, and editing them, trying to make them not fake.

Oh and my Adobe Camera RAW really has been acting up recently, so I am unable to convert from RAW using anything except Photomatix.

For this first week’s project, my project was about Landscapes in HDR, High-Dynamic Range.

Above you can see a valley near Hayden Lake.

EXIF:

• Shutter Speed: Multiple
• Aperture: f/22
• ISO: 100

I shot this image on a tripod, using the Auto Exposure Bracketing feature on my camera. It was later processed in Photomatix to combine the images.

This next image was also shot at Hayden Lake. It is at the mini-dam/dike at the east end of the lake. There was also three exposures combined. It has less heavy editing done to it.

EXIF:

• Shutter Speed: Various
• Aperture: f/14
• ISO: 100

Above are some pictures I happened to take while I was there. They really don’t fit the topic of landscapes, but I thought they turned out cool, so I posted them.

Anyway, the images didn’t turn out as I had hoped… but they are ok. Furthermore, some of the inspiration for my post came from the flickr group for hdr landscapes.

Location on of Photos

Oh, and FedEx lost my stuff, 02901001152000161546

Over the summer, I didn’t end up taking too many pictures, as my camera was jacked out of my car. As you can see from the scan to the left, it was stolen out of my car one night. Luckily, the insurance company covered nearly the full price (with a $500 deductible).

Anyway… I started the summer with my final project for school, (which I forgot to post at time). Below you can see the photos I did the the final.

The assignment was to choose a topic, and then create 8 images that represent that topic the best. I chose macro, but it mostly evolved into a stop motion. As you can see, most of the images are stopping motion.

After school was out, part of my photo class went on a trip to Kansas City, MO for the SkillsUSA Nationals. Mike Mattson, my teacher Mr. Twitchell, and I qualified with our Promotional Bulletin Board that we got second for at state. While there, I took a bunch of photos. Some of which you can see below, in the previous post. On the flight, I shot the photo to the right.

More recently, I was hired by a friend to take his senior portraits. To the left, you can see one that I selected, that I thought I did a good job on. There are also a few more below.

Lastly, for the past 2 weeks, I have been in California. I traveled to many different places, such as Eagle Lake, Susanville, Paradise, Chico, Sacramento, San Jose, and Santa Cruz. Below are a few pictures that I have edited from a few of those places.