Windmills - HDR or Photoshop

I guess I have become somewhat of a Photomatix addict lately. It is easy to shoot the three shots at +/- 2 stops and combine them. Usually you get a great result. For my windmill shots, there were a few problems with this formula. 1) the windmills were moving, so I got ghosting for the different positions of the blades in the three shots when they were combined. 2) The shots were taken in pretty intense afternoon sun so shadows were very deep. I tried this shot both ways with Photomatix and then just with editing in Photoshop. I prefer the photoshop image above. I pulled in the whites and blacks and increased the contrast. I masked out the barn so it didn't get so black. Then I painted back in the trailer to increase the red. Next I boosted the taturation in the whole image and brightened up the car and tractor. Below is the Photomatix image and the bottom is the original shot at ISO 800, focal length 90MM, f/5.6 1/1000 sec. with my Cannon 5D Mark II using my 70-200MM, f2.8 lens.

Gas Station Route 66

We found this loverly abandoned gas station along old Route 66 in Santa Rosa, NM. The sky was beautiful with clouds. I shot three exposures at ISO 250 f/9.0 and a focal length of 24mm on my Canon 24-105 f4 lens. The first was at 1/320 sec, second at 1/1250 and third at 1/80. I set the camera on continuous shoot for he three shots and hand held it. I combined the three shots to form an HDR image using Promatix. In Photoshop, I increased the contrast using a levels adjustment. I then boosted the saturation a little using the Hue/Saturation adjustment. The original is below.

You can see more shots from my road trip at www.scotrrklinephoto.com.

Stairway_MCA

This photo was taken under the stairs in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. It looks up at their very nice spiral staircase. The original color version of this did not have the high contrast. There were lots of reflections under the stairs. You can still see them in the middle set of stairs. I increased the black and the contrast to reduce the reflections and then finally painted in black using the clone stamp to get rid of the rest. I like the lines and the black white contrast.

This was taken with my 5D Mark II and no flash. ISO was boosted to 2000 because of the low light but it did not hurt the resolution in my opinion. i used my zoom lens at 45 mm, 1/40 sec and aperture at f/9.0. Original shot is below.

iFlower

I was getting ready to retire for the night in my hotel room. I turned off the lights and noticed this white flower practically glowing from the table near the bed. The blinds were drawn behind it giving it a nice background. I set my 5D Mk II to 6400 ISO and laid it on the table, not having a tripod. The flower did not separate from the blinds very well, so I lit it with my iPhone from above, shielding the blinds from the white light with my hand. The exposure was .6 seconds, aperture f/4.0 and the lens focal length was 76mm.

Death Valley In Color

I have done a whole series of these shots in black and white on my photo website, but wanted to get one in color. So I decided to put some of my new photoshop skills to the test.

This shot was taken in Death Valley about 1 hour before sunset. I used my Canon 5D Mk II with a 24-105 zoom at 105mm focal length. F/14 at 1/60 was the exposure. ISO 100. I was hoping for the side light and long shadow and got them. However, the sky on this shot was washed out and the mountains in the background were hazy.

In photoshop, I spotted the bushes and the footprints out of the dunes. Next I increased the overall contrast. Then I de-saturated the mountains to get rid of the blue haze and make them stand out more from the sky. I de-saturated the dunes removing color. I then sampled the dunes in the original background to get a more uniform color. And repainted them with it. Finally, I darkened the sky and added some magenta.

Road trip

I recently completed a 3-day road trip through central California. It took me from Pismo Beach across the state to Death Valley and Lone Pine, then back again through the Central Valley.
I seemed to find three main types of photos. Nature photos abound, but I try to stay away from too much sunset and wildflower pictures, looking instead for juxtapositions between nature and man. At the beach and the dunes at Oceano, there were boardwalks and fishermen. In Death Valley, there were the dunes with footprints and roads.
In the in Lone Pine and the Central Valley there were structures placed against the spectacular backdrops of the Sierras or the vast plane of the fields and desert. The electrical towers seem to pop up like daisies in the Central Valley. Right along side are oil wells. In between it all are the farms with grapes, orchards and livestock.
In the towns were people. Unless I am shooting a portrait, I usually photograph the evidence of man rather than the people themselves, but humans did sneak into some of my photos.
In many of the final pictures, I continue to experiment with format. Sometimes the flatter, “widescreen” format seems to capture everything pertinent to the photo. In these cases, I decided to make them wide and short. Difficult to frame these in the camera, but then again, it is all digital, no 8x10 negatives here.