Written on Nov 6th, 2008 by Dave Adams

Posted In: Photoshop

How To Create Stunning HDR Photographs

Aperture Priority, Balance, HDR, Photography, Photoshop, Shutter Release, Technique, Tripod 1 comment

What is HDR Photography?

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and within photography refers to a process of combining multiple exposures of the same scene to enable the capture of both the darkest and lightest areas of a photograph.

While the human eye is very good at distinguishing between dark and light areas as it looks around, and adjusts the iris accordingly, camera sensors cannot adjust to compensate for an area in a scene that is both too bright (overexposed) and too dark (underexposed) all in one photograph.

To overcome this shortcoming, a system was devised where multiple exposures of the same scene could be combined into a single image, thus blanacing out any under or over exposed areas. With film photography, acheiving the same result would have meant doidging and burning a photograph to ensure an evenly exposed final image.

Once multiple exposures have been combined into a single HDR file, the image is then put through a tonemapping process, and it is this part of the process that most people think of when they talk about HDR photography. HDR photography has become so popular that it is no longer used to just compensate for over and under exposure issues, its actually used as an artistic technique to produce visually stunning digital artworks. In fact many of the HDR photographs that you will see on the web could have been taken with a single exposure with no tonemapping, as the dynamic range in the image is not that wide. however, the process of tonemapping can give a real lift to a photograph, and depending on the artist the effects can be anything from mild to wild.

The following HDR image is one I created from 9 exposures, tonemapped and then applied a Topaz filter to. I will talk a little bit about the best way of taking photographs for generating a HDR image, and give a little more detail on the way the following photograph was processed. It should give you some idea of whats possible with the software thats available today. I would put this in the medium-mild category - beyond photorealistic but not over the top.

Final Result after Tonemapping and Topaz Filter

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Written on Nov 5th, 2008 by Dave Adams

Posted In: Mastering Photography

Mastering Urban Photography

metropolitan, municipal, nonrural, public, town, Urban, village 0 comments

I like to think of urban photography as a photography discipline in its own right, similar in some ways to landscape photography but rather than rolling hills, placid lakes, tall mountains and winding rivers, it features everything from tall skyscrapers to rundown factories, classical architecture to bustling city-scapes.

While it is easy to associate the word urban with decay or disrepair, it can also mean metropolitan or public. Urban offers the photographer a huge amount of variety, quite often on the photographers own doorstep, that gets ignored due to its familiarity. We shouldn’t overlook the potential of the nonrural locations near us to provide interesting and beautiful photographs.

What to Photograph?

There is no single answer to this, because no two locations are the same. There are some basic compostion techniques to follow, but really, anything goes. If it looks good to you, nothing else matters.

Moore and Brock, Fire Damaged and Abandoned

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Written on Oct 31st, 2008 by Dave Adams

Posted In: Mastering Photography

Mastering Firework Photography

Firework Photography, Manual Focus, Shutter Release, Tripod 0 comments

Here in the UK its coming upto bonfire night (5th November) which means plenty of opportunity to take some photographs of the spectacular firework displays that go hand in hand with these events.

The problem is, photographing fireworks isn’t as straight forward and easy as you’d hope. There are a number of issue to contend with - its dark, the speed the fireworks go off, and the inability to focus on a dark sky all mean that without careful preparation and planning, you may end up with no photographs at all.

Fireworks by foxypar4

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This article about mastering firework photography will hopefully help and guide you through some of the best tips to making bonfire night a photographic night to remember.

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