Posts Tagged ‘High Dynamic Range’

Washington Monument at Sunrise

Washington Monument HDR - ©TimeLine Media

Frozen Reflecting Pool

We have traded the cold for rain! With this in mind, I have not been able to get out there to make more photos in the early morning. Overall, it has been too overcast and rainy to get me out there. I should have made the effort, however, I am backed up with other work . Additionally, I would need to gear up with rain repellent gear for me and the cameras. Needless to say, I got lazy this week. There is still a backlog of other images that I have not posted about on the blog. These are images of the Washington Monument at sunrise from the reflecting pool that is situated at the front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Washington Monument - out of camera exposure - ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument – out of camera exposure – ©TimeLine Media

Washington Monument

This is one of the images taken straight out of the camera. In this case, I took a bracketed series of photos around this exposure to combine into an HDR final image. From this file, you can make edits right in Lightroom to bump up the Exposure, Shadows and contrast, then adjust the vibrance to make this image:

Washington Monument - out of camera adjusted exposure - ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument – out of camera adjusted exposure – ©TimeLine Media

HDR image

I was surprise to see how much data you can pull from one Raw file! Processing the 9 different exposures into HDR Efex Pro 2, I adjusted the sliders in that program to get something similar. My goal was to bring out more detail in the monument face and trees lining the pool on either side since those areas were so dark.

Washington Monument HDR - ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument HDR – ©TimeLine Media

When editing in HDR Efex Pro 2, I was able to use control points to directly edit the face of the monument. Sunrise is not the best time to photograph the Washington Monument from this angle. It loses a lot of the luster and shine with the backlight from the rising sun. I tried to pick HDR treatments where I could bring back the light color of the monument bricks. I already have some places in mind that are situated better in the early morning light to photograph next. If you have any suggestions, please let me know! Stay tuned-

Washington Monument HDR - ©TimeLine Media
Washington Monument HDR – ©TimeLine Media

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703-864-8208

Photo of the day – HDR Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial - HDR from HDR Efex Pro 2 - ©TimeLine Media

Below are photos of the Lincoln Memorial with some examples of how you can develop a photo in different ways. Firstly is just from one exposure with adjustments in Lightroom. In other words, a ‘normal’ processing from out of the camera.

Lincoln Memorial with only Lightroom adjustments - ©TimeLine Media
Memorial with only Lightroom adjustments – ©TimeLine Media

The other images were processed in HDR programs from 9 separate exposures. In summary, the images were bracketed at different exposures. Afterwards. these images were used as sources for HDR programs.

Memorial - HDR from Photomatix 5 - ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial – HDR from Photomatix 5 – ©TimeLine Media

This shows not only the possibilities with processing images in one program, but the amount of information available in combining exposures really opens up a lot of options! The HDR processing started from photo realistic presets.

Memorial - HDR from HDR Efex Pro - ©TimeLine Media
Memorial – HDR from HDR Efex Pro – ©TimeLine Media

Many of the “artistic” or “surrealistic” presets were a little off the chart for me. Especially with a subjects like the Lincoln Memorial, going too far on the processing would have really taken away from the image. Let me know which of these came out the best. If you have any tips for processing HDR images, or post processing architecture or landscape images, let me know!

Lincoln Memorial - HDR from HDR Efex Pro 2 - ©TimeLine Media
Lincoln Memorial – HDR from HDR Efex Pro 2 – ©TimeLine Media 

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

Sunflowers – Dynamics

©TimeLine Media - sunflowers in HDR

Music Direction

When I was four years old, my mother took me to my first piano lesson. This would be the start of 16 years of formal training in music. Many good lessons learned that translate to photography. One of my first lessons that I learned after getting my hands on the keys was how loud to play. The small “p” is musical notation for softly, quietly and the small “f” is the opposite – play loudly.

Dynamics.svg

These are noted when the composer wants a change from how loud you were playing just before the notation. I remember it being more difficult for me to play quietly than to pound away on the keys! The concept that was taught from very early on was dynamics. It starts very simply, teaching student to play quiet or loud, but changing how loud you play notes increases the contrast that the audience hears in their ears. It expands the dynamic range of the music making it more interesting to listen.

Photography Dynamics

In photography, contrast is always a setting that you can adjust either in camera or in software. Increasing contrast in a photo will make dark parts of the image darker, and light parts brighter. Just as in a piece of music, the increase in dynamic range will make the photo more interesting to view for the eyes. Here is an example from our trip to the McKee-Beshers sunflower fields which illustrates the concept. This photo is how the camera captured it with default settings:

©TimeLine Media - sunflowers straight out of camera
©TimeLine Media – sunflowers straight out of camera

This is how most camera would capture the scene as you walked out into the field. It gets all the information, but there is no ‘pop’ out of the frame. With any photo editing software on your smartphone or computer, you can push the contrast in the frame:

©TimeLine Media - sunflowers with added contrast
©TimeLine Media – sunflowers with added contrast

With just that simple change, the image is already a step above what most people will post online from their point-and-shoot cameras and cell phone cameras. It does take a little effort, but it is worth it to make your photography stand out a little from what it posted out there.

Since I had the time, I took a few bracketed exposures to make a high-dynamic range image of the sunflower field. This really increases the local contrast of each of the colors, and gives a more surreal representation of the scene. I tried to make it a little closer to how your eyes will see the scene since the human eye can see much more range of brightness than the camera. I think it came out well!

©TimeLine Media - sunflowers in HDR
©TimeLine Media – sunflowers in HDR

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

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