Day... ??

1/14/2011

"Cave Point"

My best friend Elizabeth and I went for a little drive to take some photos of a place up in Door County called Cave Point. The back lighting was pretty terrible for the most photogenic areas, but Elizabeth used the strong backlight to highlight me in a great picture that I'll post below. My photo was an HDR to make use of the light that I had.

Here is my friend's photo of me.

Day 128

11/15/10

"Fall Winds Down"

This photo was taken after a light snow the night before. It was a great day out and the sky was wonderful and made for a great HDR shot that played off the color of the building in the foreground.

Day 119

11/6/10

"Sunset Over the Kohl Center Lawn (HDR)"

One of my favorite HDR shots so far. Taken as the sun went down near the home of Badgers Basketball and Hockey, the Kohl Center.

Day 97

10/15/10

"Day Moon"

Disregarding the small speck on the lens, I think this is a pretty nice HDR shot with a lot of different things that catch your eye, from the fire escape, to the building in the back, and finally to the moon.

Day 66

9/14/10

"Artistry (HDR)"

Today's photo is of Music Hall on the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus. Through this process of shooting in the bright sun, I realized that I could use all this light to shoot HDR photos without a tripod by setting my camera on burst mode (motor-drive) and Auto-Exposure Bracketing and the photos came out perfect for an HDR. Instead of my normal realistic HDRs, I decided to go for the surreal look instead. Hope you enjoy.

Click for a larger photo.

Day 55

9/3/10

"The Sea Was Angry that Day My Friend (HDR)"

Today I went down a cross street to the Lake to take pictures of how the water was dealing with the storms that were rolling in today. Hope you enjoy!

Click for a larger photo.

Day 54

9/2/10

"Storm"

I have this huge urge to shoot storm photography, but its so hard to do when you're in the middle of it and don't want to expose your camera to the elements. Here I have a HDR photo from my living room of the storm. I originally wanted a picture of the rain on the window, but it was raining to hard for that. As I write this, the storm is gone, and the sky is bright and clear, though we're still under a Thunderstorm Warning.

Click for a larger photo.

Day 52

8/31/10

"Capitol from the Rooftop (HDR)"

Today I went up to the porch on the fourth floor of my new apartment building with the intention of shooting a panorama of the city. I again had a little trouble with my panorama shoot but came out with a great HDR photo.

Click for a larger photo.

Day 45

8/24/10

"Downtown Dirt Road"

Today I have an HDR image that I took outside my new apartment. I really enjoy HDR, and the level of realism and surrealism that you can create from any given set of three images. I actually took the time to go through and do layer masks and take out certain parts that didn't blend well in Photomatix. I think it turned out great, and deserves a look at the larger image.

Day 37

8/16/10

"The Atrium (HDR)"

Tonight I again was stuck on what to shoot. It was late, and dark, and the stadium was right there. I had just read two books on HDR photography and was inspired to try one more HDR of Lambeau. This time I manually bracketed exposures +3/-3 at 1 interval. 9 photos, and it didn't require much post processing, which was disappointing. I'm planning on doing more HDR photos and putting in the hours on post processing so I can iron out problems I was too lazy to iron out before. For now, heres an HDR of the entrance to the Lambeau Field Atrium.

Click for a larger photo.

Day 28

8/7/10

"Blue Mound's Ball of Fire"

I went today with Laura to Blue Mound State Park with the intention of using the beautiful lookout as a place to take some decently intricate panoramas. However, the humidity caused a large amount of haze and some problems with the lens (a spot on the lens that didn't show up in my test photos) kind of ruined those plans. However, I was able to get a few good HDR shots, as well as spend some time with Laura after she got back from being out of the country for 3 weeks. Out of 8 total HDR, each with a small problem of lighting or too much foreground showing, this was my favorite.

Click for a larger image.

Day 23

8/2/10

"Abandoned"

Today was a great day, all around. I got to spend time with my family in Algoma, eat some great food, talk and have fun. I also got to drive around Algoma with my uncle and take some photographs of different scenes around Algoma, from the waterfront to an old cemetary with tombstones over 120 years old.

Today's one pick is an HDR image of a burned and abandoned house in an overgrown field in Algoma. I took 5 images that came out as great HDRs, which I might end up posting later, as well as some other shots from the day, however, I think this in itself is a fantastic shot, though it had to be cropped because of the effect of wind on the trees around the house. Others had issues with focus or weren't as eye-catching. I'll keep working on my focusing and when a tripod is a possibility, then I'll make sure to lower my f stop from now on. This photo had to be cropped slightly 1/250, f4/5.6/6.5, ISO 100, 18mm with a polarizer.

Click to enlarge.

Day 21

7/31/10

"Skies of Brightest Blue (HDR)"

Today was my first experience using a circular polarizer filter on my camera. Because of the poor weather yesterday the sun wasn't clear enough to try out my new filter. Today I went out and drove around, all the way out to Fitchburg and back to Lake Wingra taking photographs of landscapes and using the polarizer. Though the angle here isn't perfect (polarizers are best used at a 90 degree angle to the sun for full effect) and because of that you can see a small amount of fading in the sky from dark blue to light, I'm overall happy with my purchase of this filter. It gives a darker blue and more contrast in the sky, which motivates me to take more photos outdoors in the sun. I'm also happy with how this HDR turned out. I can't wait to take more sunny-day photos.

As usual, click for a larger image. This is always a great idea for HDR images, to get the full effect.

Day 15: Bonus Photo, HDR

7/25/10

"Patrick Marsh (HDR)"

This is my third attempt at an HDR. Again, I paid a lot of attention to my framing here, and though this image didn't turn quite turn into as in-your-face of an HDR image as I was actually hoping for, I think this turned out quite beautifully. This is a very understated and natural version of an HDR image of Patrick Marsh on the north end of Sun Prairie.

Day 13

7/23/10

"Lights Out Lambeau"

Another night, a new subject, and another attempt at HDR. There are a few things I wish I had control over. The flare in the upper left corner from a parking lot lamp was unavoidable if i wanted the shot I wanted to get. Sad but true, and with my current equipment, I couldn't do anything about it. Also, with the multiple AEB shots I did and a moving part of this shot as well (the flag) being so lit up, a small amount of movement can be seen there. Lastly, a large white spot of a large spot light lights up part of a sign, creating almost a white hole in the photo. In my opinion, not bad for my second true HDR image, and I'm sure I will get better with time. Tomorrow I hope to get a chance to go in a different direction with my shots. For now, I sign off.

As always, click the photo for a larger view, and a reminder, that all my photos are copyright of myself. If you want to use them for any purpose beyond a desktop background, please let me know. Also, if you pick a photo for a background, let me know that as well, because it would sure make my day. Comments can be done with a Google (Gmail, etc.) account, or even anonymously, but you're encourage to sign anonymous comments so I know who you are. Thanks!

Day 10

7/20/10

"Capitol from Monona Terrace"

I had a lot of fun with this shoot. Not only did I get to take my first HDR photo (auto-bracketed exposure +/- two stops), but the shoot was with one of my best friends, Elizabeth. We went out wandering State Street and around the Capitol building and though I wasn't thrilled with any of the early shots, when I saw this shot, I knew exactly what I wanted.

I took three of the same shots with three exposures, then used a program called Photomatix Pro which then takes the best parts of each exposure, and then allows you to tone-map the photo to create an ultra-realistic photo called an HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo.

Enjoy, and click for a larger image.

Tech: Noise Reduction and Nighttime Photography

The last couple of hours I've been playing with faux-HDR techniques in hopes of coming up with a good faux-HDR of my photo that I posted last night. I've come up with a very in-your-face version of that photo, or one of the ones in that same set. Two layers, one bright, and one with a lot of shadows and contrast. The only part of the contrasted layer that is showing is the part of the capitol that you can see. Once I get a remote trigger, I plan on going back out there and playing with true HDR photography.


However, I've spent the bulk of my time trying to figure out noise filters. I've run a noise filter on this image twice and I am upset with the amount of noise in the sky, particularly the red portions of the sky. The water is just gorgeous, but the sky shows so much noise, and I have no idea what to do. Is it the noise filter itself? Should I invest in a program like Noiseware? Despite the problems with noise, which I hope to iron out in the near future, here we have my faux-HDR image of the capitol, from this morning at 12:30am. Enjoy!

"Midnight Capitol Across Monona Bay (Redux)"

Day 2

7/12/10

"Lovers on the Lake"

Lake Mendota from the Memorial Union, Madison, WI
The color of the sunset was just gorgeous earlier and I was lucky enough to catch the tail end of it. The couple sitting on the pier was just too well placed to pass up photographing. Here I meant to do Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) for a HDR shot, but I rushed down to the water so fast to catch the sunset that I didn't have enough time to figure out my AEB on my new camera before shooting. I notice a lot of noise in my shot, especially the clouds, so I have to look for a noise reducing program.


Click for a much larger photo.

Day 1

7/11/10

"Divergent Crack"

Burt Lindquist belaying Jon Jugenheimer on the little repeated "Divergent Crack" 5.10a, North Slope, West Bluff, Devil's Lake, WI.


This was my first attempt at faux-HDR. Blending of the layers could have been better, but I had already spent an hour just getting the image this far. I'm sure I will have better shots to work with in the future.