Posts in Category: Photomatix
9/15/2010: Mousam Marsh HDR Panorama
So, what would happen if you combined HDR with Panorama? This is 12 exposures, 4 sets of 3. I processed each set of 3 exposures in Photomatix for tone-mapped HDR, then the 4 HDRs were stitched in PhotoShop Elements, using its excellent Panorama tool. The pano was then taken into Lightroom for final adjustments (straighten, levels, sharpen, etc). If you look at it large enough (which I recommend anyway as the little image here does it no justice) you will see that the fence posts on the left center are not perfectly aligned (the wind was blowing so hard I had trouble holding the camera still), but, in general, for such a complex process (and no tripod), I am happy with the results, especially for a first experiment. This is a sweep of about 180 degrees, from Great Hill, past the mouth of the Mousam River, and all the way around to the Route 9 bridge…the equivalent of 4 28mm fields of view.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent field of view. Exposure sets separated by 3EV, auto bracket with the center point adjusted to –2/3rds EV using Exposure Compensation. Processed as detailed above.
To view the image in larger sizes, click the image above and use the size controls across the top of the window on the SmugMug site that opens.
9/14/2010: Blue House
Blue house, blue sky, steel blue sea, and the racing clouds behind the hurricane. It is actually the few warm rocks in the sun in the foreground and the massive clouds that make the image….without them the blues would not be nearly so dominant. (And I just noticed, when I uploaded this to Flickr, the sun-drawing-water effects along the horizon!)
This is another Photomatix HDR, based on three wide angle exposures (auto bracketed) in the Canon SX20IS. Besides blending and tone mapping in Photomatix, the final image was tweaked in Lightroom: a bit of Recovery for the sky, added Clarity and Vibrance, Blackpoint slightly right, Sharpen narrow edges preset, and some distortion control for both wide angle lens distortion and vertical perspective distortion to restore the horizon and straighten the flagpole. Since being able to correct it easily in Lightroom, I find I am becoming more intolerant of obvious camera distortions.
The critical step in post-processing, however, was getting the color temperature right…in the original, the rocks were too blue as well, and the image looked a bit filtered. Just the way the sensor saw it I guess. I added some warmth, but if the rocks looked natural, then the blue of the house, in particular, went too light…this is a compromise which preserves the blue house and balances the rocks. The steel blue of the sea, while not as intense as the original image, is more true to life on a day of storm seas. Or that’s the way I see it anyway.
9/13/2010: Marsh Mirror Sky
Taken on Labor Day, when all the parking anywhere near the beach was full of tourists. I wanted this sky, so I hiked out on the Kennebunk Bridle Path, through the marsh along the Mousam River near its mouth. The wind was blowing so hard I had trouble holding myself still, let alone the camera, but I still tried a series of HDRs. A tripod would certainly have helped.
Even though the horizon here is placed in the middle of the image, where I try to avoid putting it, I think it still works because of the power of the sky, and the reflections in the pools. Then too you have the strong leading line of the receding pools and the solid anchors of the posts in the foreground. I particularly like the open shadow at the left along the ridge between the pools and the play of light on the trees. All together there is a lot going on here. Printed large and hung, it would be, I think, one of those images that would catch the eye every time you glanced at it, and that would reward repeated study. I think.
Canon SX20IS. Three exposures using the auto bracket feature on the Canon SX20IS, adjusted to place the dark exposure 1 and 2/3rds EV below center. Assembled in Photomatix Light, using the tone-mapped mode. Final adjustments (Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen) in Lightroom.
9/5/2010: Jordan Pond and the Bubbles
Happy Sunday!
The three mile loop around Jordan Pond is one of my favorite hikes (walks?) in Acadia National Park, and that is saying quite a bit as there are a lot of hikes in Acadia that I really like. Of course, the fact that we have had a daughter (or two) working at the Jordan Pond House the past 6 summers only adds to the attraction. It does not matter how many times I walk this walk…there is always something new to see, even if it only the angle of the light, or the pattern of the ripples in the sun, or the way fog drapes the cedars on the south shore. Always something new. But then new is a gift we receive from the author all things new, inside, before we can see it outside. Or at least that is the way I see it.
This is another experiment in HDR using two SX20IS exposures 3EV apart and Photomatix to blend them. Final adjustments for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance and Sharpness in Lightroom, plus some distortion correction for the challenging perspective.
From Acadia 2010.
9/4/2010: Frenchman’s Bay from the Narrows
Here is an interesting comparison of similar HDR shots from 1) the Canon SX20IS/Photomatix combo, and 2) the iPhone 4 with the ProHDR app.
Frenchman’s Bay separates Mount Desert Island from the Scodic Peninsula to the north, and is almost the closest thing we have to a fjord in North America. (Our only actual fjord is just one range of mountains south in Somes Sound, which splits Mound Desert Island.) These shots are taken from The Narrows, where the Route 3 bridge joins Mount Desert Island to the mainland.
With a little work in PhotoGene on the iPhone or Lightroom on the laptop, I could adjust the color balance of the two images to match. It is something I am learning. ProHDR leans towards the warm, and Photomatix leans toward the blues, maybe too far in both cases. The Photomatix shot has already had considerable toning down of the blues.
In comparison, I like the perspective of the iPhone shot better, with its slightly longer lens it brings up the far shores of the bay much more prominently. Having seen this comparison I would now use a longer setting on the zoom of the Canon SX20IS, which was at its widest, 28mm equivalent here.
(By the way, Apple just announced that the next version of iOS for the iPhone, due out next week, will include built in HDR for the Camera, using up to 3 exposures. We shall see how that compares to ProHDRs renderings.)
One thing that this comparison demonstrates pretty dramatically is the quality of the lens and sensor on the iPhone. You expect this kind of quality in today’s P&S offerings…but this is, in my opinion, pretty amazing for a phone!
9/3/2010: Cadillac Mountain
On the way back from dropping daughter #3 off at College, we stopped for the afternoon and night in Bar Harbor…mostly to see daughter #1 and #2. Daughter #1 lives there, and daughter #2 is working there in Acadia National Park for the summer. No visit to Acadia, of course, is complete without a drive to the top of Mt. Cadillac. Even though we only had a few hours there, after a hike around Jordan Pond (also a must as far as I am concerned), we drove to the summit on the way back to Bar Harbor and dinner. It was not a pristine day…there was a good deal of haze over the ocean, but the late afternoon/early evening light was interesting on the stone of the peak.
This is an HDR using two exposures and Photomatix Lite. In realty I am not sure I gained much through the two exposures. I am pretty sure I could have adjusted a single exposure in Lightroom for close to this effect. Still, the tone-mapping for detail in Photomatix certainly brought up all the character in the foreground rocks, and I am certain I could not have pulled up the greens in the trees to this level. The greens have always frustrated me in shots from Cadillac, since exposing for rock and sky always leaves the greens running toward black. Keeping the greens vibrant gives this shot three strong layers instead of two. This is good.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. Two shots separated by 3 EV using the Exposure Compensation dial.
Photomatix as above. Adjusted for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpness in Lightroom.
From Acadia 2010.
9/2/2010: Fox Pond, Maine
And so we leave rainy Germany and merry old England (also rainy) for perhaps another year, and return to home and Maine. Last weekend I drove my daughter to her first days of college in Machais, and, on the way back to Bar Harbor, where we planned to spend the night, my TomTom (on the iPhone) took me a shortcut across the mountains inland from US Route 1 and the coast. The sign as you turn on Route 182 says it is a Maine Scenic Byway, and it is indeed. The road climbs through the low coastal mountains, up and down, past streams and lakes and ponds. It was a glorious day. Good job TomTom! The only complaint I have about this shortcut is that it was, considering the wonderful scenery, too short!
This is Fox Pond, about 2/3rds of the way between the two ends of the loop of US 1 that 182 cuts off. A low angle shot with the SX20IS flip out LCD to get the water hyacinth in frame.
I used a single image tone-mapping in Photomatix to give it an HDR effect, before bringing it into Lightroom for final adjustments of Exposure, Blackpoint, Clarity, and Sharpen. I also had to straighten it a bit.
Canon SX20IS @ 28mm equivalent @ f8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 80. Aperture preferred so I could use a small f-stop for depth of field. The hyacinth was barely a foot away.
From Machias 2010.
8/29/2010: Greetham Valley Country Club
Happy Sunday!
I visit the Oakham area of England once a year for the British Birding Fair, the largest gathering of birders in the known universe (for more on the BBF take a look at my post on the ZEISS blog). It is held at Rutland Water, a reservoir, which is home to the Anglian Water Reserve. Oakham, small sleepy one-pub town that it is, surrounded by small sleepy one-pub towns, is not exactly equipped for the annual inundation of birders. Those of us who have to stay there are for the three days fill every available hotel space. The local schools rent out space for sleeping bags on the gym floors. We used to stay at the Barnsdale Resort (not to be confused with the Barnsdale Lodge), on the hill overlooking Rutland Water on the other side from the Fair, but this year we moved to a golf club and convention center, a bit further away, near the village of Greetham.
And all that is to explain why I have taken photos of a golf course…not something I am in the habit of doing…but during the BBF (which is work for me) I get only a few moments a day to consider photography…and it is my one visit a year to England, so I do, always, consider photography. I take what I can get, and within walking distance of the hotel this year, golf course was all you could get.
This is an HDR image from two exposures on the Canon SX20IS, combined in Photomatix Lite, and refined in Lightroom.
I actually like it, despite its obvious golf-courseishness, for the range of greens, and the variety of textures and shapes. No one can say the designer of the course was insensitive to the particular English beauty of the countryside. He (or she) preserved enough of the natural landscape and existing trees so that the native beauty comes through, and actually augmented it with the decorative pools and paths. Very English.
It is an idealized English landscape, under one of England’s typical skies, looking most like a well mannered 19th century painting on the drawing room wall.
I am tempted, being Sunday, to liken it to some folks vision of the Garden of Eden, but then all I would be left with saying is that, while I can appreciate its beauty and appeal, it is not mine. I’d like to think I could be at home in a much wilder Eden, without feeling the need to making it so homey…if you know what I mean.
But then, I am not a golfer, even of the Sunday variety.
8/28/2010: Good Night Wetzlar
One last shot from old town Wetzlar. The stone bridge, gables, and lighted shop windows, with the gloomy drama of the sky above. Without HDR treatment this shot would be impossible. To me it totally captures the feeling of the rainy evening as I headed back to the hotel, and says something about old town Wetzlar that I have felt, but never captured before.
Two shots with the Canon SX20IS separated by 3EV, and then tone-mapped blend in Photomatix. Final adjustments in Lightroom for Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen. Perspective and distortion correction.
From Germany and England 2010.
8/27/2010: The Dom and the Bridge
It got later and later on my rainy evening walk through old town Wetzlar, but the evening light lasts a long time in Germany. I was headed back to the hotel when I made a last stop for this classic shot of the Dom above the stone bridge over the Lahn. Once more a shot I have taken many times, but never in this light, and never with HDR in mind. The drama of the cloud cap, the last light, the moisture in the air softening color and prespective, and elegant arches of the bridge set in rustic stone, the pastel gables of the old houses, and above it all the tower of the Dom (and that anachronistic blue polyester tarping). Quite a shot, even without the fairy light of the fountain on the trees at the right. 
Two radically different exposures allowed me to capture the light of the foreground and the gray of the sky, and Photomatix Lite put them together for a pretty remarkable effect (if I do say so myself).
A little help from my usual Lightroom routines (Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen), and some perspective and distortion correction, and there it is.
Canon SX20 IS.
From Germany and England 2010.