Shawnee Smilax

On our recent visit to Shawnee State Park and Forest over the labor day weekend, I tried to climb a ridge one evening to get a clear view of the sunset. I was unable to find a clear view of the western sky, so I set up Megan's Canon SX20 is on my tripod to take an image of the interior of the forest.

Shawnee's dry ridgetop forests are often blanketed with the tangling vines of greenbriars (Smilax species). Thank goodness for trails, because you don't want to walk through a patch of these without thick pants.

Why was I shooting with Megan's camera? I forgot my wide angle lens for the trip! Megan's SX20 has a nice wide angle/telephoto zoom, so that is what I brought with me on my evening photo adventure. For this shot, I captured 8 different exposures, and combined them using Photomatix Pro. This technique of taking varying exposure information from multiple photographs and squishing it all together into one photograph is called High Dynamic Range photography, or now simply known as HDR. It's a technique that is evolving- many point and shoot cameras can create this type of image without extra software.

Some have scoffed at HDR while others love it- it is certainly a polarizing topic in photography. To me, it is another tool in the box of camera goodies that I have at my disposal. And for something like the interior of a forest, at sunset, with bright highlights and very dark shadows, using HDR imaging allows me present an image of what my eyes actually saw better than a single photograph would have allowed.

-Tom

HDR Photography How To- "On Golden Pond"

Click for larger image.

First of all, I'd like to thank Tom aka Fishing Guy, from Kent Ohio, and Heather of the Hills, for inspiring me borrow the original "On Golden Pond" film from the library. I was explaining that I'd never seen a loon at Little Pond, Maine, and Tom was surprised, since the movie "On Golden Pond" portrays them as a regular sight and sound for the Thayers. Not so for Little Pond- I just don't think it is big enough to support loons.

Getting back to the movie- Megan and I watched it, and although it is a bit dated, a bit slow, and a bit cheesy- it was really worth our time. The movie does a superb job of illustrating what the lake life is like in Maine- idyllic.

Now, onto how I created the picture above. Obviously, this type of view is something that an ordinary camera cannot capture with a single image. However, using a photographic technique called high dynamic range photography, or HDR, we photographers can take multiple exposures of the same scene and merge them in a software called Photomatix. The resulting merged image can then be tone mapped, also using Photomatix, to allow the bright areas and the shadow areas of the image to be exposed as the eye would see them in nature.

Let's see how this works- here are the three images that went into making my On Golden Pond- Little Pond photograph-.




The three shots are not exactly impressive are they? One reason for this is that they're minimally processed RAW files, straight out of the camera. Photomatix, with a great deal of input from the user by adjusting many features with sliders and buttons, can really make magic.



Tom

P.S. I'll give 10 points, yes, 10 points, to the commenter that can correctly identify the scientific name of the deciduous tree prominently featured in the right hand portion of this image.

Land's End, Bailey Island, Maine

Larger version here.

Olentangy Sycamore

Olentangy Sycamre, originally uploaded by Tom Arbour.

This evening I played around at creating HDR images again using shots taken last evening. This time, I downloaded the full blown version of photomatix and wow, was I happy with my tone mapping results! Isn't this image cool? To generate an image without watermarks, one needs a license, which will set me back about $100. For now, I'm satisfied with just playing around, but digital photography is incredible. It wows me every day.

Today was a fantastic day at Shawnee and I'll have pictures of our trip tomorrow. Be sure to stop by and see what fascinating creatures Shawnee had to offer.

Tom

How to Create Fantastic Digital Images that Will Wow Your Friends

Notice anything interesting about this group of photos? I took them in succession, but at different exposure values using the exposure compensation feature with my Canon Digital Rebel XTI. The first image is two "stops" underexposed, the second is one stop underexposed, the third image is what the camera's computer thought was an ideal exposure for this scene, and the fourth and fifth images were overexposed by one and two stops, respectively.

The bottom line is that before digital photography, you had to choose one exposure and stick with it. Especially when using slide film. Which image would you have chosen to best represent the scene? More detail in the sky, or more detail in the plants in the foreground?

The bottom line today is that with digital imaging, you don't have to make this choice anymore. There's a technology, and an art really, known as HDR imaging that solves this age old problem and really puts digital photography over the top.

How did I found out about HDR? Upon joining FLICKR last fall, I was noticing some incredibly interesting images that looked like they were taken in real life, but had the lighting and look of computer animation. Images like this one and this one.

After doing some research, I found out that these fantastical looking images were called HDR, or high dynamic range images. These images, are in fact, a compilation of differentially exposed digital camera photographs all compiled into one image, in order to fully express the range of dark and light tones in a scene. Dynamic range is simply the difference between the lightest light and the darkest dark in a scene. Today's digital cameras don't capture a very wide dynamic range (neither did slide film, print film's range was slightly wider).

Have you ever noticed that your camera can't capture a sunset very well? Even though you might see color in the foreground of the scene you are viewing, the camera isn't able to pick that up. Or if your camera sees the foreground, then the sunset is washed out and really bright? Let's look closer at the first and the last image.





High dynamic range imaging looks to eliminate that problem that I have so crudely illustrated above. The goal is to present an image that more accurately represents what the eye sees rather than the camera sensor. After putting together an HDR image, you go through a process called tone mapping, and voila, you've got a pretty darn cool looking image.

And producing a high dynamic range is quite easy. Making it look really good is something that I'm still trying to figure out. I have seen some incredibly realistic looking HDR landscape images that don't look fantastical or computer generated.

There are several free downloadable software packages out there to get you started on the HDR path. I've been using Photomatix. What else do you need? Well, a digital camera with some type of exposure compensation (most Canon cameras have this, even the bottom of the line models), and preferably a tripod, but this is optional. I didn't use a tripod to capture the above images, and the Photomatix software can align a series of images for you if you shoot with a steady hand. It even has a feature to remove "ghosting" from the images, usually things like moving people, which certainly was helpful for me in this beach scene of Sanibel Island.

So, you're probably thinking, "OK, I'm ready to see the final product". Well, for that, I might draw this out just a little bit longer! I'll post my final image tomorrow. But for now, try going outside and taking a few image series, download Photomatix, and give HDR a try!

Tom

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Little Pond- a first attempt at HDR imaging

Little Pond
Originally uploaded by Tom Arbour

One the most interesting things about digital photography is the ability to produce things called high dynamic range images (HDR). I have seen this technique used on FLICKR and have always been intrigued. The images I see are usually quite strange looking. Recently, I have seen landscape images produced using HDR techniques that were quite appealing. After doing some internet research, I think I have caught the "HDR bug"!

Last night I created my first HDR image. I used a software program called Photamix Basic to combine two images of Little Pond into one image. The original images, taken within seconds of each other and with a tripod were under and over exposed. By themselves, the images did not look very good. However, put take the lights from one image and the darks from another, smush them together in a computer, and whala!, this is what you get. I like this image, although if I cropped it so that the light spot in the lower right was eliminated, I think it would be more pleasing and balanced.

Chris asked to see the starting images, and here they are. I think that the final picture takes more from the second image. Be sure to click on the final picture to see the image at FLICKR, where you can also take a look at the image at larger sizes.

Tom