Tag Archives: post processing

Pentax K200D, Sigma 30mm f1.4, Street Photography

Subway

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Subway, originally uploaded by jezza323.

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The final shot which I will blog from my Saturday morning walk in downtown. I was finished up, so I headed down to the subway to go home.

Packing Up

As I sat there removing the Tair-11a from my Pentax K200D body, and the tricky M42 adapter ring, I noticed this man reading quietly next to me. Looking down the platform I decided it would be worth getting a shot of the train pulling into the station.

Preparation

I popped the Sigma 30mm lens on, dialed in a slowish, but not too slow exposure and waited for the train to arrive. Fortunately my subject remained seated and reading until the train came to a complete stop, so I was able to get the shot I was looking for. I actually fired off 4 quick shots (I often do this if shooting a slower shutter speed, as 1 of them is bound to be sharp enough). It is a kind of cliche shot but I enjoy it.

Processing

All editing was done in Lightroom. I cropped the image to a 16:9 ratio (I do enjoy 16:9), adjusted the levels a tiny bit, made it black and white, then increased the contrast quite heavily.

HDR

Getting It Off The Camera – HDR Photography Part 2

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HDR Photography

  1. Shooting a HDR
  2. Getting it off the Camera
  3. Blending Time
  4. Final Processing
  5. Some Inspiration

Off The Card

Now that you have been out and shooting bracketed shots, or bracketed panorama shots, you have at least 3 times as many images on your memory card to deal with. These are the steps I go through when I am getting my shots off the camera and doing the initial viewing in Lightroom.

Import

I import from my card reader using Lightroom’s import function. This automatically imports images into my photos folder, under a YYYYYYYY-MM-DD (ie 20102010-01-12) format. You can also ask Lightroom to backup the photos to a 2nd location when importing, very important, and simple to do.

Review

The first thing I do after import, is a quick review of imported images in the Lightroom Library module. I work my way through, viewing every image (only briefly). If I believe a HDR set of 3 (or more) bracketed images is worth processing further, I will select all the images, then I will export each set to its own subfolder, such as “HDR-1″ or “HDR-4″ as a 16-bit TIFF file (you must not use the compression option for your TIFF files, photomatix does not support it). I then stack the selected images (stacking is a lightroom feature) using the Ctrl+G shortcut. This leaves me with a number of subfolders in my working folder, which need to be processed further. (When doing HDR Panoramas I export all the images into a single folder, ie. “HDR-Pano-1″)

Windows Explorer

I will then open up Photomatix on my main monitor (I have a dual monitor setup, with a decent 24″ Dell and an old 17″ LCD) and Windows Explorer on my 2nd smaller monitor. At this point I will navigate to my first HDR subfolder, select the images I wish to blend in Photomatix, and simply drag and drop them from my Explorer window onto Photomatix.

Photomatix

After dropping some files onto Photomatix, a small dialog asking what you want to do with the images will be displayed. If you wish to just blend them together (as opposed to HDR) then select that, otherwise you will want to choose “Generate an HDR image”. You then need to confirm the selected images. Photomatix will then ask you to select some settings to use to generate your HDR.

Generate HDR Settings

  • Align source images – If you were not using a tripod, you should check this box. I usually use the “By matching features” method, but if that does not work, then you should also try the “By correcting horizontal and vertical shifts” method.
  • Reduce chromatic abberations – I always leave this checked, as the HDR process enhances any CA in the shot
  • Reduce noise – I always leave this one checked too, again because the HDR process enhances any noise in the shot.
  • Attempt to reduce ghosting artifacts – If you have some people/cars/boats in your image which move between the seperate shots, you can try using this option to have Photomatix attempt to remove them, however it doesnt always work. If you find it results in black or white sections of the image (obvious blending errors where the moving objects were), you should start again and not select this option, you can always fix it in the final image. For this one I usually try the “Moving objects/people” option, because thats what I’m trying to remove. If you have a tree which blows about in the wind between shots, use the “Background movements” option.

Now you are ready to click OK. Photomatix will take a few moments, then display you a rather strange looking version of your image, ready to be Tone Mapped. If you notice anything wrong with the image at this point, such as the black/white sections from ghosting or misalignment of the images, you should close, and start the process again here.

I will leave it there for today, in the next post I will cover the Tone Mapping process.

HDR

How to Take a HDR Photo – HDR Photography Part 1

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I have had a few people asking me what my process or method for processing HDR images is over the last few days, so here is a detailed run down of how I shoot, process, blend and publish my HDR images. I will split this up into a number of shorter posts, but I will try to get through all the steps as quickly as I can over the next few days.

HDR Photography

  1. Shooting a HDR
  2. Getting it off the Camera
  3. Blending Time
  4. Final Processing
  5. Some Inspiration

Shooting a HDR Image

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and a HDR image is an image where the range of brightness displayed in that single image is more than you would normally get from a single photo. In a HDR image you are compressing really bright stuff, and really dark stuff into a more evenly lit image. By doing so you can make out the detail in the darker areas, and the detail in the bright areas, where normally, you would just see black, or white sections.

There are 2 main ways of shooting a HDR image. The first is to shoot a single frame, and have it saved as a RAW file (RAW files contain a wider range of brightness information for each pixel than a JPEG file). You can then compress the wide range of brightness in that file down into a HDR image. I rarely use this method, as I always shoot RAW anyway, and only use HDR when there is need to capture a wider range of information than a single RAW can capture.

The 2nd method is to shoot multiple frames of the same scene at different exposures, which is called “Bracketing”. Most new digital cameras give you the ability to shoot in a bracketing mode. When shooting in this mode, the camera will take 3 (or more) images at varying exposures. By doing so, you are able to capture the detail in the image over a much wider range of brightness. When you blend these 3 (or more) exposures together, you end up with a HDR image. This is the method I use for shooting my HDR images.

Bracketing Shots

If your camera gives you the option to shoot in Bracketing mode, it will often allow you to select the spacing between the exposures of each image. With my Pentax K200D camera, I am able to adjust the exposure brackets from 0.3 EV spacing, up to 2.0 EV spacing, in 1/3 EV steps (0.3, 0.7, 1.0 etc). Most people seem to recommend shooting your brackets at +/- 2.0 EV. This gives a good range of exposure, without going too far apart in your images. When shooting your brackets, it is very helpful to use a tripod. This will prevent any problems in blending the final image due to misalignment of the images, but it also helps to prevent camera shake causing blurry shots, especially for the +2.0 EV shot, as the shutter speed for this shot will be quite slow.

Other Settings

Most of my HDR shots are of buildings/landscapes and other things which do not move and require a large Depth of Field. So when shooting this type of scene I recommend shooting in Aperture Priority mode on your camera, with the aperture set to around f13 or even f16 (where possible, see 2 paragraphs down for why it might not be). Shooting in Av (aperture priority) will give the best control over your depth of field, using aperture priority mode when bracketing means that the camera will only adjust the shutter speed for your brackets. By locking the aperture down, it means the depth of field remains constant throughout the bracketed images.

It is also possible to use Shutter Priority mode for shooting your HDR, however this means the camera will adjust the aperture +/- 2.0 EV stops for each bracket, giving you varying depth of field, which may result in some parts of the scene being out of focus for the +2.0 EV image (where the aperture will be the widest).

A lot of my HDR’s are in poor light, so I almost always use ISO 100 with longer exposures to ensure the least possible amount of noise. Something to watch out for though is the 30″ (second) maximum shutter time limit on most DSLRs. If you’re 0.0 EV image requires a shutter speed of anything greater than 2 stops less than 30 seconds (7.5″ is 2 stops less than 30″) it means that your +2.0 EV shot will not be a full 2 stops brighter. For this reason I try to adjust the ISO and aperture until I am able to get the 0.0 EV shot down to at least a 10″ shutter speed. By ensuring I have at least 1.7 stops of headroom in shutter speed I am able to use the longer shutter speed shot to get the details out of the darkest areas in the image.

Extra Dynamic Range
n some cases (not very often though) a +/- 2.0 EV bracket does not give enough range in light, and you still have blown out highlights, or blacked out shadows. Some cameras allow you to specify a wider range for bracketing, but my camera does not. So a little trick I have learnt is to use the exposure compensation (or exposure bias) to help fill those ranges. What I do is set the exposure compensation to -2.0 EV, and then shoot a 3 image bracket at +/- 2.0 EV. This results in shots at -4.0 EV, -2.0 EV and 0.0 EV. Then I quickly reset the exposure compensation to +2.0 EV and shoot another 3 image bracket. So in total I have a -4.0 EV, -2.0 EV, 2x 0.0 EV, +2.0 EV and +4.0 EV images. When processing, I simply discard 1 of the 0.0 EV images and blend away.

I hope this helps you get your HDR shot. In the next post I will cover my workflow for processing HDR’s up to the tone mapping stage.

Abstracts, Jupiter-9 85mm f2.0, Pentax K200D

Rainy Day

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Rainy Day
Originally uploaded by jezza323

Well its been raining since the beginning of the weekend here now (on and off raining anyway). Here is a shot I got of some rain clouds in between the showers. Unfortunately the background is a boring grey rather than white or blue sky (or even better more cloud formations)

This is a 3 shot panorama. I shot using the K200D and Jupiter-9 85mm lens with aperture set to f5.6. I made sure to shoot the frames quickly so the movement of the clouds wouldn’t interfere with the stitching.

Shooting and Processing as follows:

  1. Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
  2. Imported into Lightroom 2.5
  3. Exported to 3x 16 bit TIFF
  4. Stitched using Autopano Giga
  5. Rendered to a single 16 bit TIFF
  6. Imported new TIFF into Lightroom 2.5
  7. Applied adjustments in Lightroom (clarity, contrast, white balance)
  8. Exported to JPG for Web
Landscapes, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D

Australia Day Sunrise

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Happy Australia Day to all the Australians :)

This shot is from a few moments before sunrise yesterday morning (Australia Day, 26th Jan 2010) from the Mt Cootha Lookout in Brisbane. The Brisbane CBD and surrounding suburbs are visible in the shot.

The shot was taken using my Pentax K200D, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Slik 500DX Pro tripod and Kenko CPL filter. It is a HDR shot blended from 5 images, taken at -4, -2, 0, +2, +4 EV steps using Photomatix 3.1 and Tone Mapped using the Details Enhancer. I outline how I did this below.

Shots used were all at 18mm, ISO 100 and f13. Shutter speeds were 1/20sec, 1/80sec, 1/5sec, 0.8sec, 3.0sec

Shooting and Processing as follows:

  1. Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
  2. Set Exposure Compensation to -2.0 EV
  3. Shot 3 bracketed shots at +/- 2.0 EV (giving -4, -2 and 0 EV shots)
  4. Set Exposure Compensation to +2.0 EV
  5. Shot 3 bracketed shots at +/- 2.0 EV (giving +4, +2 and 0 EV shots)
  6. Imported into Lightroom 2.5
  7. Applied the settings shown below to all 6 images (the first image)
  8. Exported all 6 images to full quality JPG
  9. Deleted the worst of the 2 0 EV shots (this is only 5 images remember!)
  10. Blended the remaining 5 images in Photomatix
  11. Tone Mapped in Details Enhancer using the settings show below
  12. Saved as JPG
  13. Imported HDR JPG into Lightroom 2.5
  14. Applied the settings shown below in Lightroom (last image)
  15. Exported to JPG for Web
Misc, Pentax A 50mm f1.7, Pentax K200D

A Broken Christmas

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A Broken Christmas
Originally uploaded by jezza323

I took this shot to enter in my workplace monthly photo comp in Decemeber. The theme for the month was “Broken”. Being Christmas time I got into the spirit and broke some tree decorations.

I was trying to capture a decoration in the process of breaking, but unfortunately my timing was never quite good enough. This was the best of the lot though, which I took just after it had broken.

There was a LOT of work in Lightroom 2.5 to complete this photo. The key to doing large area Adjustment Brush work like I did in this photo is to use a LARGE brush, and the Auto Mask feature. Don’t be too tempted to use a small brush to get in between things. If you keep the centre of the brush in the right spot, the Auto Masking will take care of the rest!

 

A before/after comparison in Lightroom

Shooting and PP Details as follows:

  • White Nylon backdrop
  • Pentax K200D body, firing onboard flash
  • Pentax SMC “A” 50mm f1.7 lens @ f22
  • Tripod to mount the camera, and a cable remote to fire it
  • Sunpak flash with optical trigger and home made diffuser, placed directly above, and slightly behind the subject
  • Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
  • Import into Lightroom 2.5
  • Applied large area of adjustment brush to make background more white, area and settings shown below
  • Minor basic edits to improve contrast and colour in the broken pieces, shown below
  • Edit Detail settings
  • Export to JPG For Web
Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D, Project 52, Urban

Project 52 – #2 – Kurilpa Bridge

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Kurilpa Pedestrian Bridge, originally uploaded by jezza323.

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This is the 2nd shot for my 2010 Project 52 – “Brisbane Landmarks”

This is the recently completed Kurilpa Bridge, a Pedestrian Bridge from the Brisbane CBD over the Brisbane River to West End/Southbank.

This is a 3 shot HDR, taken with my Pentax K200D and Pentax SMC DA 18-55mm AL II

Base shot was 18mm, ISO 100, f9.0, 5 sec, bracketing was at +/- 2.0 EV

UPDATE – Processing details now posted – sorry for the delay.

Shot and Processed as follows:-

  • Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
  • Imported into Lightroom 2.5
  • Exported to 16-bit TIFF
  • HDR Generated using Photomatix
  • Tone Mapped using Details Enhancer (settings shown below)
  • Save-as 16-bit TIFF
  • Import into Lightroom 2.5
  • Minor editing applied using adjustment brush to remove some unwanted detail on the right of image (brush positioning and settings shown below)
  • Increased Blacks and Brightness
  • Exported to JPG for Web

 

 

Architecture, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D, Project 52

Project 52 – #1 – It Begins

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Southbank Peace Pagoda

Originally uploaded by jezza323

Here is the first shot for my 2010 Project 52 which I have decided to use the theme of “Brisbane Landmarks”. It is a Nepalese Peace Pagoda located at Southbank in Brisbane, QLD Australia. It was built for Expo ’88 and petitioned successfully to remain on the old Expo site (which is now Southbank).

This photo is a HDR, combined from 11 shots. All shots were taken at f16.0 and ISO 100, and shutter speeds were – 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30 secs.

Processing as follows :-

  • Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
  • Imported into Lightroom 2.5
  • Shots exported to 16-bit TIFF
  • Photomatix generated HDR from 11 16-bit TIFFs
  • Photmatix Tone Mapped using Tone Compressor
  • Saved as 16-bit TIFF
  • Imported new file back to Lightroom 2.5
  • Cropped in Lightroom 2
  • Edited in Lightroom  as shown below (settings not shown were not edited)
Pentax K200D

Summer Storm vs Shutter Speed

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We just had a lunchtime summer storm roll through Brisbane, so while it was raining I took some shots of a tree near my house with the rain coming down on it. I thought it would be interesting to see the difference in the image of the rain with some different shutter speeds.

I setup my Pentax K200D on my tripod, mounted the Tair-11a 135mm f2.8 lens to get in close to some of the rain, and to keep the background blurred I set the aperture to f2.8. I set the camera to Aperture Priority mode (Av) to let it meter itself. The ISO was set to 400. This was the achieve a nice short shutter speed, and the resulting exposure was 1/640 sec and is shown below.

The following exposure I set the ISO to 100, and added a TianYa ND8 Cokin P sized filter in front of the lens (just held it by hand). This was to achieve a much longer exposure, and we end up with a 1/30 sec shutter speed and is shown below.

Take note of the difference in the rain drops. The first shot freezes the drops in mid air, while in the 2nd shot you get a long streak of falling water droplets. I personally prefer the first image, it conveys a sense of action to me that the 2nd image does not.

Processing on the first image was as follows :-

  • Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
  • Import into Lightroom 2.5
  • Processed as shown below (settings not show have not been altered)
  • Export to JPEG for Web