I’ve been trying to look for scenes around me that are in the holiday spirit. I saw this large Christmas wreath on a house and thought it might make for an interesting photo. After shooting the picture, I thought that if I presented it in a soft focus that it might be more representitive of the impression I wanted to convey. A couple of filters later, and here is the result.

This is another snow scene from the Adirondacks by Wilmington, NY. Reprocessed as a single shot HDR, just to compare to the original photo. It seems that in almost all cases the HDR image is nicer, but I still need to start working with images shot specifically for HDR to really figure out the whole process.

Today’s post is another single-shot HDR photo, which I shot some time ago. In its original form I was going to use this for a Christmas card last year, but then I decided to use another photo. I reprocessed it as an HDR to see what kind of different look I could achieve.

The photo was made with a Nikon D700, with a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens. Some of the shots which I took at this location had a nice reflection in the river, but those needed to be framed in portrait orientation to show the whole scene. The RAW file was originally processed in Adobe Lightroom, and the was just archived for future use. The HDR processing was done with Photomatix, and I also used Nik’s Color Efex to bring out the color in some of the foliage.

This photo was taken along the Ausable River near Wilmington, NY. I’m hoping to be able to take a trip up to that region again shortly, since I need to start getting Christmas Cards ready to send out. Hopefully my schedule will coincide with some fresh snowfall so that I will have a choice of winter scenes for this years cards.

The photo was taken with a Nikon D700, with a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens. The camera was mounted on a tripod to allow me to use a fairly slow shutter speed, which gives the flowing water a smooth texture. The camera is positioned on a small ledge overlooking a 50 foot drop, but because of all the trees this was the only place to get the shot. The RAW file was processed in Adobe Lightroom and then Photomatix, which does the HDR conversion and tone mapping.

I realize that the photos that I am processing as single shot HDR’s are not true HDR images. Sometimes the single shot image is necessary, especially when the scene contains moving objects. I need to start shooting some new images withs bracketed series, which will allow me to create true HDR shots. I’ll be interested to see how much of a difference there will actually be between the two methods.

I did head out today with the best of photographic intentions, but things just didn’t seem to go my way. I wasn’t happy with the light, and I didn’t really see any subjects that caught my attention. I knew I had a few more pictures from Maine which I wanted to convert to HDR, so I decided to use one of them today.

This image was made with a Nikon D700, with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. I intentionally shot it at the short end of the lens, because I was looking to capture a wide image with a bit of a fisheye effect. The RAW file was processed in Adobe Lightroom and then in Photomatix for the HDR conversion and tone mapping.

I processed this photo with Topaz Adjust in several different ways after the HDR conversion was complete. Some of the results were a little too wild for my taste, so I decided to go with one of the more subdued versions. The HDR process has so many different possible looks that I’m still trying to figure out what I like. The only way to figure this out is to get more experience with the technique, but I’m looking forward to sorting it all out.

I was working all day today, and I wasn’t getting much time to make any pictures today. Between the busy day and bad weather, I didn’t have a whole lot of choices in photo subjects. I decided to continue with the HDR theme I’ve been following, with a little twist.

Today’s photo was take with the iPhone 3G-S digital camera. It is actually 2 photos, which were combined into a single HDR image using TrueHDR, a new app which I downloaded on my iPhone. The app combined the 2 photos automatically, resulting in the image shown here.

I was interested in this scene for several reasons. The lights, colors, and variety of patterns made for a nice composition. Since it is under an elevated platform, I was able to take the shot without getting soaked. This did create a scene with a very wide contrast range, which seemed to be the perfect trial for the TrueHDR app. While it doesn’t allow for the control available on a computer, it does a pretty decent job – especially considering everything is done right on the iPhone.

Since I had to go to work tonight, I decided to revisit one of my images from Maine. This is an image that I had originally categorized as being unusable due to the very wide dynamic range. On further examination however, I thought it might make an interesting HDR photo.

The image was made with my Nikon D700, with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. The camera was mounted on a tripod, because I was trying to use a fairly long shutter speed to give the flowing water a little blur. I had imported the RAW file into Adobe Lightroom, but I hadn’t done anything further with it since then. For this post, I processed the file 3 times with 3 different exposure values to give Photomatix the files it needs to create the HDR image. One nice thing about doing a single shot HDR image is that moving object aren’t really a concern, since there is nothing to line up. After completing the tone mapping, I used Topaz Adjust to give the image a bit more contrast.

I knew when I was shooting this image that the contrast range of the scene was going to be a problem. I actually tried to use a Graduated Neutral Density filter, but between the large lens size and close focusing distance of the 14-24, I didn’t have much success. If I were to shoot this image again, I would definitely consider shooting a series of shots for use in creating an HDR image. All things considered, though, this single shot HDR is fairly nice.

I wanted to go down to the dock today because the sky looked liked it might provide an interesting sunset. By the time the sun was going down, though, the sky had pretty much completely clouded over. There was just one section where the sun was shining through, so I decided to concentrate on that.

Today’s picture was made with a tripod mounted Nikon D700, with a Nikon 200-400mm f/4 VR lens. I used the long lens to try and isolate the sunlit area, while eliminating unwanted distractions. I pretty much knew I was going to make an HDR image from this, so I bracketed a 5 frame sequence to capture all of the information I wanted. The files were opened in Adobe Lightroom, and then exported to Photomatix for the HDR conversion. The Photomatix plugin does a great job on the conversion, although there are a fair number of options which can be adjusted – so many choices is not always a good thing.

My interest in the HDR process is growing every day. I see this as a way to introduce a new dimension to my photography. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the techniques involved, and I hope to use it more often in the future. It seems that the HDR process has rekindled my interest in this whole project, which is a welcome change. Recently I had felt on several occasions that I was going to fail to complete this 365 Day Project, but for now I think I’ll keep it going for a while.

Since I’m still not feeling that hot today, I decided to work on a project which is ongoing. I’m using a photo which I made several weeks ago, but I hadn’t done anything with.

Today’s photo was taken with a tripod mounted Nikon D700, with a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens. The photo was made from a fair distance from the lighthouse, because I felt that the grasses in the foreground really added to the image. Since so many lighthouse pictures tend to isolate the subject, I decided I wanted to include a “sense of place” in this image. The RAW image was imported into Adobe Lightroom for processing.

When I made this picture I felt that I might want to make a Black and White photo from it. After looking at the file today, I decided to process it as an HDR image. Since I didn’t have a series of captures for the HDR conversion, I decided to do a single- shot HDR image. I processed the file 3 times at 3 different exposure values and then exported those images to Photomatix for processing. While I still have very limited experience with HDR, I’m learning more about it and I look forward to working more with this technique.

I did take a picture today, but I’m not really going to have a chance to say much about it. Work was pretty busy and time just got away from me. Hopefully back to normal tomorrow.