Posts Tagged ‘HDR’

Mar

2011

Cathedral Park, PDX

The northern gateway of Portland, OR is marked by a most beautiful structure named the St. Johns Bridge. The steel suspension bridge spans the Willamette River between the Portlandian neighborhood of St. Johns on the east side and the industrial district the dominates the waterfront area near the Linnton neighborhood on the west side. The bridge, completed in 1931, was designed according to a Gothic Cathedral-like theme, with a pair of large spire-topped towers, distinctively arched supports, and a high, long arching center span (1,200 ft).

Cathedral Park is located under the east end of the Bridge, and provides excellent views of the bridge supports all the way to the eastern main tower. Not a large park, but a unique one.

Shooting the arches and the underside of the bridge presents all sort of challenges, chief among them being the high dynamic range scene generated by the (always) strongly backlit subject. As the rival smartphone vendors seem to claim constantly these days…we have an app for that… Actually, we have two new apps for this, which are HDR Efex Pro by Nik Software and the new version of Photomatix Pro (4.0), by HDRsoft. I’ll have a few comments on these software packages in the next few entries.

Images in this entry were recorded using the Nikon D3s, and the AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR, the AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED, and the AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II lens. Bracketing for the HDR images of the bridge pillar and the support arches consisted of 5 shots at +2 EV, +1EV, 0 EV, -1 EV, and -2 EV. These two HDR images were converted to BW using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. The image of the Camellia Bush is not HDR, but is a single color image, converted to BW using Nik Silver Efex Pro, masked to let some of the color of the flowers show through.

Tags: Cathedral Park, HDR, HDR Efex Pro, High Dynamic Range, Nik Software, PDX, Photomatix Pro 4.0, Portland St. John's Bridge
Posted in HDR Images, Just Out for a Walk | 1 Comment »

Aug

2010

Fruita Schoolhouse

Capitol Reef National Park. Although it is the equal of any of the scenic wonders of the Grand Staircase, it is generally far less crowded than Zion or Bryce Canyon. This is due to the simple fact that it lies a little further on down the road, and is therefore left off many a family’s itinerary. The area is not recorded on official maps before 1872, and the road from Richfield to nearby Torrey was not paved until 1940.

In spite of its remote location, by 1880 Mormon settlers had established a farming and ranching outpost that would eventually acquire the name Fruita. An apt name, for fruit orchards planted by the Mormon pioneers are still thriving here. Capitol Reef was established in 1937 as a National Monument (NP in 1971), and by the late 1960s the Park Service had acquired most of the privately held property.

One of the more interesting remaining pioneer buildings is the one-room Fruita Schoohouse shown above. The structure is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, and the specific entry may be found here.

The image of the schoolhouse was recorded at about 16:00 MDT on July 22, 2010, using the Nikon D3s and the AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR lens at 16mm. Exposure was f/16 and 1/320, ISO 800. Image converted to BW using Nik Silver Efex.

The boulder inscribed with the name of the location lies just behind the schoolhouse (north). In addition to the engraved ‘Fruita Grade School’, there are a plethora of other minor inscriptions. Same exposure and processing parameters as for the schoolhouse image.

Images like the schoolhouse have become prime candidates for what has become known as one-shot HDR processing. Using this method, single RAW files are converted into HDR images as shown below. Images converted to HDR using Photomatix Pro 3.

The results are almost always processed using Details Enhancer mode (in Photomatix parlance) to produce a characteristically illustrated or ‘painterly’ representation of the image. I don’t know. Although I reject all impressionistic representations on the basis of principle, that is not really the issue here. There is something simultaneously intriguing and unsettling about this representation. Frankly, it is certainly more compelling than the BW representation in many instances. Anyway, if you like this sort of thing, I invite you to enjoy the effort. At any rate, I cannot resist the opportunity of exploring new methods, so you’ll see more of this stuff.

Tags: B&W, Capitol Reef National Park, Fruita, Fruita Schoolhouse, HDR, Photomatix Pro 3, Silver Efex Pro
Posted in HDR Images, National Parks and Monuments | Comments Off on Fruita Schoolhouse

Apr

2010

Cisco, UT 84515

Cisco, Utah, was born during the late 19th century era of the steam engine, and became an important watering stop for the locomotives. The railroad station became a key shipping center for the livestock that were managed in the open range country of the Book Cliffs. Unfortunately, the diesel locomotive made stops at Cisco unnecessary, and by the 1950’s the long decline of the town had began. Unlike Greenriver, which lies adjacent to I70, and which is an important stop for travelers, Cisco was left too far off of the freeway to gain significant commercial traffic. Hard luck.

The image above, of the old Cisco post office, was recorded on April 18, 2010 at about 12:40 MDT, using the Nikon D3s and the (new) AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR lens at 16mm. Exposure was f/16 and 1/160s, ISO 400. One RAW images was converted to HDR using Photomatix 3.1 ( see below for for processing details).

Regional guides list Cisco as a ghost town. I’m not so sure, since while it certainly does have certain attributes of a ghost town, it has also been exploited as a junk yard – plenty of character to be sure, but for ghost town aficionados it’s most probably not the real deal. Regardless of how you define it, the place certainly is a great location at which to refine your High Dynamic Range photography (HDR) skills. Light, dark, decrepit structures, old, abandoned cars, it’s all in there. The circumstance lends itself most naturally to what I will name – without any judgment – fantasy HDR. For you HDR aficionados, by ‘fantasy’, I mean to conjure up the effect one gets with (in Photomatix language) Detail Enhancer mode tone mapping conversion. Of course we’ve all seen this effect, and there is tons of this stuff on the web – some of it is very nice. I include links to a few of the more active HDR sites that describe Detail Enhancer mode strategies below:

http://www.aguntherphotography.com/tutorials/raw-hdr-processing.html

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/

http://www.vanilladays.com/gallery/tag/hdr/

http://www.robertcorrell.com/

The full Detail Enhancer mode specifications for this file are shown below:

Photomatix Version 3.1
Method: Details Enhancer
Luminosity: 5
Strength: 100
ColorSaturation: 88
WhiteClip: 5.0
BlackClip: 5.0
Smoothing: High
Microcontrast: 10
Microsmoothing: 2
Gamma: 1.0
HighlightsSmoothing: 0
ShadowsSmoothing: 0
ShadowsClipping: 0
ColorTemperature: 0
SaturationHighlights: 0
SaturationShadows: 0

Tags: Cisco, HDR, Photomatix, Utah
Posted in Adventure, HDR Images, Methods | 2 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘HDR’

Cathedral Park, PDX

Fruita Schoolhouse

Cisco, UT 84515

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