I am a little behind, but I hope to catch up this week. We have had rainy weather non stop for a couple weeks now. Yesterday I got out amongst the showers in the Mt Cootha Botanic Gardens, and in particular wanted to visit the Japanese Garden. You can read about the garden here.
Over the last week or so I’ve been discussing shooting in various different aspect ratios with a friend at work. He had the idea to shoot only in a particular aspect ratio for a bit. After this discussion I decided to copy his idea a little, and try shooting some stuff in the movie aspect ratio of 2.39:1 (my friend has decided on 16:9 btw). This is from my first shoot where I specifically considered shooting in this aspect. I dont plan on taking lots of shots in this aspect ratio, but it is fun to consider.
This is a Brenizer Panorama, taken with my Pentax K200D and Jupiter-9 85mm lens at f2.8. I stitched the shots using Autopano, then did some editing in Lightroom 2.5 to get the final result (crop, contrast, exposure, blacks)
Here is another example of using Startrails.exe for something other than startrails. This shot was taken almost a year ago now, its made of many 30 sec exposures stacked together to get the multiple trails of planes coming in to land, and taking off.
This shot is another example of using startrails for adding elements into a shot
A panning shot of a speedy walker Took the DSLR out for some street shots yesterday instead of the little Canon. IQ difference is really something else, lol
Canon is super grainy at ISO 200, this shot at ISO 800 is way better.
Taken with the Pentax K200D and Pentax M 28mm f2.8 at f11, using zone focus method for focusing.
The sunrise at Wellington Point in Brisbane is a popular location for local photographers. The sun is rising just to the right of frame in this shot, you can see the orange/red glow off the top of the clouds. This is landmark #7 in my Project 52 Brisbane Landmarks for 2010.
Taken with the Pentax K200D and Pentax SMC DA 18-55 AL II @ 18mm, Kenko CPL, TianYa ND8 and TianYa ND8 Grad Filters (thats a whole lotta filters…I didn’t need the ND8 but it was already in the holder from an earlier shot).
Single exposure processed in Lightroom 2.5 with exposure graduated mask, clarity, white balance, contrast, exposure and fill lights adjustments.
EDIT: I just realized I had this marked as landmark #6! It is actually landmark #7.
This is an example of using Startrail software for something other than star trails. Here I have taken 44 photos from the same location, each with a 6 sec shutter speed, then used startrails.exe to stack all 44 photos together into 1. This gives the sense of speed and action in the shot.
A single 6 sec shot results in maybe 1 or 2 “car trails” which do not travel through the entire shot. If I were to adjust the aperture such that I could get a much longer exposure then the car trails themselves would be dim and barely show up. Also on long exposures noise can become an issue, by stacking the photos, you end up with less noise, although you do get the odd gap in the trails, which you may notice in this shot. This occurs while the shutter is closed between shots.
To make this method of shooting work effectively I would recommend getting a cable remote for your DSLR which has a button lock down feature. This will keep the shutter button locked down, without you having to sit there with your hand on the camera.
The St Stephens chapel was the first catholic church in Queensland. It was completed in 1850. It is located next to the Cathedral of St Stephen on Elizabeth St in Brisbane. The cathedral was built later to cater for a larger congregation.
This shot is another HDR Panorama – as are a lot recently! I think I need to get a wider lens ;-). This shot is composed of 2 portrait orientation HDR’s stitched using Autopano. Each HDR is 3 images, shot at +/-2.0 EV and blended using Photomatix Batch Processor using Details Enhancer for tone mapping.
I have had a few enquiries about my HDR processing methods. I will be doing up a detailed step by step post over the weekend to share with everyone, so stay tuned.
This is a 9 shot HDR Panorama of the inside of the Cathedral of St Stephen on Elizabeth St in Brisbane. It is composed of 3 landscape orientation HDR’s. Each HDR is 3 shots taken at +/- 2.0 EV. This is landmark #5 in my Project 52 Brisbane Landmarks for 2010.
The shots were taken using my Pentax K200D and Pentax SMC DA 18-55 AL II lens @ 18mm. I also used my tripod to support the setup for the required long exposures.
Processing Details
Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
Imported into Lightroom 2.5
Exported 9 images to 16 bit TIFF
Blended using Photomatix Batch Processing using Details Enhancer for Tone Mapping, this created 3 16 bit TIFF files
This is a HDR of the Twin Falls waterfalls at Springbrook National Park in the Gold Coast Hinterland. It was a very cloudy and very wet weekend, so I had to use HDR to prevent the sky from blowing out badly.
These falls are quite high and an impressive sight. If the weather were better I would have been keen for a swim in the pool. Maybe next time
This was blended from 5 photos. To get the 5 shots, I set the camera exposure bias to -2.0 EV, then took 3 bracketed shots at /- 2.0 EV (giving -4, -2 and 0 EV) then quickly set the exposure bias to 2.0 EV and took 3 more bracketed shots (giving +4, +2 and 0 EV). I then have shots ranging from -4 to +4 EV in 2 EV steps. I delete 1 of the duplicate 0 EV shots and blend the remaining 5 in Photomatix.
This is a neat little trick if the normal +/- 2.0 EV bracketing is not enough for the scene being shot. In this case the white cloud above the waterfall was blown out in every shot except -4 EV.
A Blog of my Photographic Journeys, Equipment, Techniques and Images.
Took the DSLR out for some street shots yesterday instead of the little Canon. IQ difference is really something else, lol
