02 January 2009
A few more HDR shots from the same photo walk as the previous ones.
This is the big cinema in Uppsala, Filmstaden. I only needed three bracketed shots to get the dynamic range here, since the sky wasn't that bright above the houses.
And here five shots, taken about two hours after the photo above.
This is Islandsfallet, from which the river is deep enough for boats to sail south to lake Mälaren.
Labels: hdr, photography, photomatix, Uppsala
01 January 2009
It's beginning to feel like I'm repeating myself ... Couldn't resist to take a few more pictures of Kvarnfallet last time I went shooting in Uppsala.
I used my Gorillapod to fasten my camera to the iron fence that runs along the river, keeping the shoulder strap around my neck as extra security. Didn't feel like loosing the camera to the ice-cold water below.
I probably looked weird to the people passing by ... but hey, that's photography.
For this last shot (which really was the first) I used the grey (ND) filter I was given for Christmas. Very useful for this kind of stuff to get nice long exposures.
Labels: hdr, photography, photomatix, Uppsala
04 December 2008
Två HDR-bilder jag tog i helgen på Musikens hus, eller som det egentligen heter, Uppsala Konsert och Kongress.
Labels: hdr, photography, photomatix, Uppsala
26 November 2008
21 November 2008
I was off work today, so I went out at dusk to grab some more HDR photos. I had a few ideas of what to try. They've put up the Christmas lights all over town, so I thought I would see how they looked tonemapped.
I went into town at about two pm, thinking I would be there just before they switch the lights on. (It starts going dark at around 2.30.) It turned out I was a bit early and stood freezing for almost an hour.
While I was waiting I took some shots when the sun went down. The sky was rather dull so I didn't think they would be very interesting. But I'd say they turned out at least as nice as the shots I got with the Christmas lights later on.
When my toes were about to fall off and I couldn't cope with waiting any longer, I went to the paper where I work to get my core temperature back up to normal.
Just as I was about to head off again, they switched the lights on. So I set up my tripod in the middle of the cycle path (why are the best places for tripods always in someone's way?) and got a shot of Nybrogatan.
I also got a few of the main shopping street, Kungsgatan.
I finished off back at Köpmangatan where I started. I tried making them as saturated as the first ones, but that didn't really look good. So I went with fairly muted colours instead.
Labels: hdr, photography, photomatix
18 November 2008
During the weekend I got my hands on Photomatix and have started experimenting with it.
For those who didn't know, Photomatix is software for combining over- and underexposed shots into artistic-looking HDR images.
In the Flickr community, there seem to be basically two camps. Those who love Photomatix and those who hate it. I've always been somewhere in between.
The program allows you to create really eye-catching images, but they will look nothing like real life. If you just accept this fact and see these overcooked
HDR images as an artform slightly beyond photography, then you can have loads of fun making them, as I've now discovered.
Also in defense of Photomatix (not that it needs it) is the fact that far from all photos treated in Photoshop look real either.
Yesterday I went into town just before sundown with my tripod to see if there was anything worth pointing the camera at. The photos above and below are a couple I came away with.
I'm slowly beginning to learn what all the sliders in Photomatix do. There are a few more than I had reckoned and they don't all do what you expect them to. The key ones seem to be strength (obviously), luminosity and light smoothing as well as the tone settings (gamma, white point and black point).
Seeing how much fun it is to make these images, you'll no doubt see more here in the future...
Labels: Eskilstuna, hdr, photography, photomatix
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