Archive for the ‘Eskilstuna’ Category
Tuesday, May 1st 2012
In the latest release candidate of Lightroom 4.1 (RC2), Adobe has added the possibility to edit 32-bit tiff files. This means you can merge several bracketed files in Photoshop using Merge to HDR Pro, save the resulting 32-bit file and then edit it in Lightroom using all the new fancy controls.
I gave it a try on an old HDR series I shot with my Canon 30D back in 2008. Here is the middle exposure:

After having merged the exposures in Photoshop and imported the resulting (111 MB) tiff in Lightroom, this is what it looked like:

Not so different from the middle exposure. So I got going with the new sliders in the basic panel and it turns out you can do som pretty cool stuff!
When editing a high dynamic range 32-bit file, the key is to bring down the highlights and to brighten the shadows. Lightroom 4 has two sliders that are called just that, Highlights and Shadows, so it is pretty straight forward.
The beauty of having a 32-bit file to work on is that you can make these adjustments to the extreme and keep getting more visible detail.
Here are the settings I ended up with after a bit of tweaking:

I then continued by tweaking the tone curve slightly and boosted the blue saturation (and surrounding colours aqua and purple).


I didn’t feel I had to do any local adjustments at all really. Here’s the final result:

Pretty nice and crunchy! (And I didn’t even abuse the clarity slider!) Now compare it to the version I made back in 2008 using Photomatix (if I recall correctly) just Photoshop:

The new version has the advantage of Lightroom 4’s new Clarity algorithm as well as the new Defringing. The latter makes a huge difference when developing HDR images. Colour fringing can easily spoil an otherwise nice HDR image. In the old version above you can see some red fringing on the oak branches to the left.
Here’s another one I re-did now:

… and the corresponding old version:

All in all, the new versions are amazingly crisp next to the old ones. Which versions you prefer is obviously a matter of taste, but there’s no denying that Lightroom 4.1 very easily can produce a nice and punchy HDR image that still looks reasonably realistic. No weird halos and none of the weird greyness that Photomatix produces.
It is really quite inspiring and makes me want to go back and re-edit a few more of my old HDR images.
Tags: HDR
Posted in Eskilstuna, Lightroom, photography | 2 Comments »
Saturday, March 26th 2011
Igår morse kunde jag inte låta bli att ta några HDR-bilder. Jag tog tre exponeringar för varje bild. –3, 0 och +3 stegs exponering.
Som vanligt är jag väldigt kluven över resultatet. Snyggt eller fult? Överdrivet eller dramatiskt?
Den här gången behandlade jag de två bilderna både i Photomatix och i Picturenaut. De två programmen ger väldigt speciella men väldigt olika effekter.
Först i varje par är Photomatix-bilden. Dra över bilderna för att jämföra med originalen (mittenexponeringen).


Jag gillar t ex inte de konstigheter som Photomatix hittar på vid lyktstolpen mitt i bilden här ovanför.






Den sista bilden blev extra konstig i Picturenaut, med helskumma färger på både himlen och trädet till höger. Ingen aning var Picturenaut fick de där nyanserna ifrån.
Jag skulle egentligen vilja lära mig göra HDR-bilder i Photoshop och blanda dem manuellt med lager och sånt. Någon som har något bra tips på var man kan börja?
Tags: HDR
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | Comments Off on Photomatix vs Picturenaut
Saturday, March 26th 2011
Klev upp klockan fyra i morse för att hinna till Eskilstuna före solen. Svinkallt var det. Trodde höger tumme skulle trilla av och det kändes inte som att jag fick så mycket i bildväg för mitt lidande. Men efter at ha tittat igenom minneskortet har jag valt ut ett par som jag tyckte blev hyfsade ändå.







Men nu, efter att ha varit vaken i 21 timmar, börjar det bli dags att sova…
Tags: Canon EOS 7D
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, March 16th 2011
Fem bilder som jag tagit sedan jag fick hem min 7D.

J. A. Selander, det enda motiv jag hittade när jag skulle fördriva en halvtimme mellan jobbet och frisören.

Tulpaner som Jenny köpte hem häromdagen. För ovanlighets skull öppnade jag bländaren hela vägen till f/1,4. Brukar alltid nöja mig med 1,8 eller 2,0 eftersom 1,4 ofta ger väldigt låg kontrast.
I går morse tog jag med kameran i bilen till jobbet. Eftersom det är väldigt lite trafik vid fem-halv sex på morgonen så tog jag mig friheten att stanna på Hjulstabron och Strängnäsbron för att knäppa av några bilder. Fantastiskt att det börjar bli ljust så tidigt.

Har flera gånger när jag åkt förbi där tänkt på hur vackert det är med sprickorna i isen som reflekterar himlen.

Här lyckades jag ställa skärpan lite för nära, träden blev lite suddiga eftersom jag var tvungen att köra full glugg
f/2,8. 1/13 sek, ISO 1600.

Dessa tre bilder tog jag alla med vidvinkeln, 11-16mm. I efterhand tycker jag nog att jag borde ha haft 17-55mm på kameran när jag var på Strängnäsbron för att komma lite närmare ön och domkyrkan.
Tags: blommor, Canon EOS 7D
Posted in Enköping, Eskilstuna, photography | 6 Comments »
Thursday, May 13th 2010
Getting up at 5 am can have its benefits, even if its hard to see the benefits just as the alarm goes off.



Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | 2 Comments »
Sunday, April 25th 2010
I took a nice long walk yesterday in the Sundbyholm nature reserve. I was hoping to see some kind of wildlife. And I did see a woodpecker, but that was about as wild as it got. Still, I got a few other shots that I consider reasonably interesting.

The road leading up to Sundbyholm looks good in almost any kind of weather or light, thanks to the rows of trees along it. The above photo was shot with my Sigma 10-20mm @ 10 mm.

There was a wedding party at the Sundbyholm mansion. (The Swedish name Sundbyholms slott
suggests it’s a castle, but that gives completely the wrong impression in English. This building is definitely more like a mansion.) All the guests had gone inside and the steps up to the front door were covered with petals. Taken with the Canon EF 70-300mm IS @ 75 mm, f/4.
Here are two other photos I got during the week.

Here I used my Canon EF 70-300mm IS with a close-up lens attached to the front. This combination works quite well if you avoid using the very longest focal lengths. This was shot at 160 mm.

Jenny had left a glass of water in the kitchen and the oxygen was beginning to settle in bubbles, as it tends to do. Canon EF-S 17-55mm IS @ 55 mm and f/4.
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | Comments Off on An odd collection of photos
Sunday, April 25th 2010
Was driving home through Eskilstuna centre yesterday and caught sight of this scene lit by the evening sun. Just had to stop and have another go at a panorama.

Seven vertical shots, all at 1/125 sec, f/8 and ISO 200. I could have done this with only six shots though, since I’ve cropped both the ends off.
The full size image could make a 125×50 cm print @ 180 dpi.
Tags: Autostitch, panorama
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | Comments Off on Eskilstuna panorama – again
Friday, April 16th 2010
Went out for a photo hunt on my bike today. Didn’t find anything interesting. Until I got back to our garden, where I found some very un-pretentious crocuses popping out of the ground.
I did see them on my way out, but thought naw, too boring
. On the way back I thought, why not?
.
I decided to use my 50mm and my angle-finder to get really low, to make them at least a bit different from the millions and millions of crocus photos flooding Flickr as we speak.






I don’t know, maybe I went overboard with the processing. What do you think?
The bumble bee in the last shot looks like he’s stretching, doesn’t he? And if you flip between these two photos quickly, it looks like he’s doing his morning exercises.
Tags: angle-finder, crocus
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 9th 2010
Well, the title is perhaps a little misleading. Panoramas in or from Eskilstuna might be more correct.
I was inspired a few days ago by a blog post I saw somewhere … I can’t find it now though. Someone who had shot a panorama of Gamla Staden in Eskilstuna. So I decided to try the same thing.
Today was rainy, but then suddenly the clouds broke. Just before sundown, so the timing was perfect. I dropped everything and grabbed my camera bag.
Here’s what I came home with … Nothing spectacular really, but I had fun all the same. Click for larger 1800px versions.

Norr.

Gamla Staden.

Klosters kyrka.

Strömsholmen.
Tags: Autostitch, panorama
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 9th 2010
Looking through your old photos is always good fun. Here are five of mine that I really like, that I found while leafing through all my sets on Flickr.

Fors kyrka in Eskilstuna. Shot with my Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6.

Faktoriholmen, Eskilstuna. Shot with my Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5. At 5.30 in the morning. Don’t think it was on the way to work – if I remember correctly I just woke up very early and felt very inspired.

A toadstool that I found in Kronskogen, Eskilstuna. Shot with my 50mm @ f/2. Added a slight split toning in Lightroom.

Here I was playing about with various fruit and vegetables. This was shot with my 50mm @ f/2.8. Lit by nothing more than my desk light.

Again, playing. This time with matches.
Tags: Sigma
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | Comments Off on Five Old Favourites
Wednesday, February 17th 2010
The other day, Mikael Barani showed me some photos he’d taken in Kronskogen. That inspired me to go outside with my camera the same day. But the weather wasn’t really that good for shooting in the woods.
Today though, with a nice coat of frost, the woods sounded like a better deal. So I had a go at catching the silence and cold.
I stuck to using my 50mm and my 10-20mm. I did try a hand-held HDR which came out ok, but I didn’t like it as much as the rest of the photos so now it resides in my Windows recycling bin.
By the way, two of these shots are total rip-offs of the ones he showed me. 🙂





Since the photos were fairly uninteresting straight from the camera I tweaked
the contrast and added a split toning effect. (When a photographer says tweaked
he means mashed it so hard it looked ridiculous and then brought it back down a bit
.)
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | Comments Off on Trees and Snow in Kronskogen
Wednesday, November 4th 2009

I liked how this one turned out. Shot with my 50 mm lens at f/1.8. I have desaturated it, added some split toning and a vignette. I have some more on Flickr.
Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | Comments Off on Crispy Leaves
Tuesday, October 20th 2009
Woke up to some great fog. Sadly it lifted slightly before I got out with my camera on my way to work.



Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | Comments Off on Foggy morning in Eskilstuna
Thursday, October 15th 2009
Came home from work at quarter past five. This is the sight that greeted me in our garden.

Posted in Eskilstuna, photography | Comments Off on Horrible? No.