↑

Posts Tagged ‘HDR’

Personal, Photography, Travel | 0 comment

Milwaukee Buildings

City Park

The last few posts have been describing some of my travels through the city of Milwaukee. It has a lot of photogenic landscapes with the tall buildings, historic monuments, and natural environments that the parks, lake, and river provides to visitors. A few years ago, the park planners even put in a very beautiful man-made waterfall that beautifies a water drainage way from the park to the lake below:

Lake Park waterfall - ©TimeLine Media
Lake Park waterfall – ©TimeLine Media

Nearby, we spent some time by the North Point Water Tower. Situated high above Lake Michigan, it is a beautiful Victorian tower that contains a 135-foot-tall standpipe that helped to being clean water to the city from 1874 until the 1960s. A traffic circle now surrounds the tower which makes clean photos easy to make from many sides.

North Point Water Tower - ©TimeLine Media
North Point Water Tower – ©TimeLine Media

Downtown was also a really cool place to take photos. We ran into other photographers that were walking along the 3-mile River Walk that follows the Milwaukee River behind many restaurants, bars, and residences. We had a great time seeing all the people starting their weekend fun by meeting friends after work. There was lots of boating activity from small catamarans, to larger dinner-board cruise ships.

River Walk

River Walk, Milwaukee, WI - ©TimeLine Media
River Walk, Milwaukee, WI – ©TimeLine Media

We walked through the Historic Third Ward with their boutiques, bars, and the Public Market. On the way back up the River Walk, we also stopped by to see the Fonz! He has a photogenic spot by the river – he could probably jump over shark in the river right behind him… ahem. I should probably quit while I’m ahead. Have a great weekend!

Bronze Fonz - ©TimeLine Media
Bronze Fonz – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Personal, Photography, Travel | 0 comment

Milwaukee Tour

Wisconsin

Thanks for all the responses from the post yesterday. I had some questions on the photos that were taken out of the plane window. The photos that I posted were all from the Fuji X100s. Although you are allowed to use small electronic devices during takeoff and landing, I did not turn on my phone out of habit. So I took the photos with the small mirrorless camera, then cropped the images in Lightroom so that you can see more of the details out of the window without the frame of the plane, the wing or the engines in the way.

Wisconsin from the air - ©TimeLine Media
Wisconsin from the air – ©TimeLine Media

This is only the second time that I have spent any time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My mother always takes a city tour when she goes to a new place, so we decided to give that a try. We found Untapped Tours of Milwaukee through an online search, and made it down to City Hall to meet the tour guide. This was probably the best thing we could have done with our time!

Untapped Tours Milwaukee

Untapped Tours bus - ©TimeLine Media
Untapped Tours bus – ©TimeLine Media

The tour stopped at all the sights around the city. With the foggy, but nice weather, there were a lot of opportunities for photos, but more importantly, we found all the places that we needed to visit later. The tour started at the impressive Milwaukee City Hall. Even though the building was being renovated, the size of the building and the scale of its tower was impressive both inside and out.

Milwaukee City Hall clock tower - ©TimeLine Media
Milwaukee City Hall clock tower – ©TimeLine Media

Since we were on a tour, I did not have a lot of time to setup a photo of the building. I just took out my Fuji X100s, and took a series of photos from bottom to top. My thought was that I would combine the photos later in a vertical panorama in Photoshop.It worked! I had to work on the photo with some adjustments due to the way I shot the original images. After the tour, I also had the chance to take more time and make an HDR image. I’ll post more about that on the next Tech Thursday post.

Milwaukee City Hall - ©TimeLine Media
Milwaukee City Hall – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Personal, Photography, Technology, Travel | 0 comment

Friday the 13th

It’s a full moon tonight, and on Friday the 13th too! I know there are some crazy stats on how many times that congruence has happened, and how many years it will be until it will happen again. It will be a cloudy evening for us in the metro DC area. So, it will not be a good night for moon watching. I will have the camera at the ready in case there is a break in the clouds! Here are some photos from a less cloudy day in DC.

Washington, DC - Smithsonian Castle - ©TimeLine Media
Washington, DC – Smithsonian Castle – ©TimeLine Media

We walked back to the Smithsonian Castle to get more exterior photos in the gardens at this time. It is always nice to get a second chance at a shoot. This is something that is impossible in most situations. At sporting events, weddings, or corporate presentations, you only get one chance to capture the images that they are wanting. Practice with my gear is really needed in personal shoots like these photo walks. It gets me familiar with all the different settings, where all the buttons are located on the camera body, and how to dial them in. I remember something that I used on this walk to help with the events I covered over the weekend. Moreover I will probably use on my next shoot.

Smithsonian Castle, Washington, DC - ©TimeLine Media
Smithsonian Castle, Washington, DC – ©TimeLine Media

The red bricks of the castle really pop out nicely in high dynamic range photos. With the sun high in a partly cloudy sky, the background becomes a beautiful blue. After putting the bracketed images through the HDR processor, you can really boost the structure of the bricks, and the color of sky to make them contrast nicely. I was much happier with the image I was able to get from this walk through than the one a few weeks ago. It was much later in the evening, the sun was a little closer to the horizon giving more direction to the light.

Reflecting pool by Smithsonian Castle - ©TimeLine Media
Reflecting pool by Smithsonian Castle – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

1 2 3 4 5 … 10