Impressionistic Sunset (Looking for the Transit of Venus)

As I looked closely at the unedited version of my picture here, looking for the Transit of Venus, I did not find the planet (which was probably hidden behind the street light, anyway.) Instead, I found all sorts of dust specks in my picture (yuck!). 

Rather than trash the picture, I took it over to Photoshop Elements 2.0. I applied the Dust & Scratches filter (Radius 37 pixels, Threshold 9 levels) and... voila! The dust specks are gone! Together with the dust specks, you've also lost the street lamppost (or, from what you can see of it, it looks nothing like a street lamppost) as well as the trees looking anything like... trees. But, since you couldn't see Venus anyway, the image has been somewhat salvaged to leave you with a pretty picture of the setting sun. (Canon XTi; June 5, 2012). 

That Little Dot on the Sun Might Just Be Venus

That little black dot on the right-side of the sun might just be Venus from the Transit of Venus (June 5, 2012). Or, it was an untimely piece of dust on my camera lens (but I really do think that it could be Venus). The black and white version below was the best that I could find from the photos that I took, in which I may have actually seen Venus making its transit.

Surreal View (or not) Transit of Venus (maybe) 2012

This photograph is from June of 2012, the day that the Transit of Venus was supposed to be visible. (It's the first in a series of several that I'll be posting.) I'm not sure that I ever saw Venus (except on Wikipedia or elsewhere online after the fact), but I did make several interesting sunset shots. I ran this particular image through Photomatix for a little single image HDR action, and then took it over to Elements 2.0 to do a little work on dust/spot removal. The mountains beneath the sun are really trees that have come out with some really cool colors to look like... mountains.

Islands and Trees on a Hazy Lake Horizon

It took me a little bit to come up with the right word for this picture. I wanted to say something about the hazy line of trees at the end of the lake, but the right word was escaping me. It's not really a 'vanishing point', as that requires some set of parallel lines that draw into each other.

The word was 'horizon', "the apparent line that separates earth from sky" (thanks, Wikipedia!). "At many locations, the true horizon is obscured by trees, buildings, mountains, etc." In this particular picture, the horizon is dotted with a line of trees/islands, which appear hazy, I suspect, at least in part because they are 'on the horizon'.

This picture is from our trip this past summer into Lake of the Woods. Sony NEX-6. Processed as a single image on Photomatix, and then sent through Aftershot Pro for cropping and other adjustments.

This Creepy Little Character Looks Like...

Every time I make one of these Play-doh heads, my kids walk over and say, "Is that Golem?" (No, they have not seen the live-people version of Lord of the Rings. They have watched the cartoon version, though....)

This time, I think I'll beat them to the punch. It wasn't quite what I was going got, but this one actually does look Golem-esque.

Having Some Optical Illusionary Fun

Ok. I admit that my optical illusion pic is not nearly as cool as some of the other optical illusion pictures out there.  But the more that I stare at this image, the less I see it for what it really is. (Does this make any sense?)

Maybe I'm trying really hard to not see it -- for what it really is. Maybe I'm  thinking too hard, that it would somehow be so much cooler... if it were something else? As I said, the more that I stare at it, the wider the lines seemed to be at the bottom, building up into the vanishing point of the circle at the top. This makes me start to think that it looks like a pyramid... a pyramid whose point disappears into some kind of circular doughnut?

Ok, I give, I give. It's really a water tower. I was shooting from the base of the water tower looking up. It was already a fairly gray water tower, shooting up into a fairly gray sky, on a boring, not much exciting to see (like pyramids) gray winter day. (I'm really not depressed or anything; I'm just playing with you. Remember? I'm having some optical illusionary fun. Thanks for looking!)

Strange Red Winter Berries

Living as I do in the winter-worn state of Minnesota, I get used to seeing a lot of gray outside during the wintertime. The other day offered something of a break in the cold, and -- when I went outside and saw these colorful berries, I took pictures. I'm not sure what kind of berries these are (or even, if they are really berries at all!), and wouldn't you know that the wind was blowing as I was trying to make three exposures, hand-held (i.e., no setting up the tripod in the snow for this particular shot.) Thankfully, Photomatix was able to successfully merge my three exposures (spaced at three; it's amazing what Photomatix can do when it comes to such photo merges), and after a little tinkering... voila! HDR red winterberries! (Or, whatever they are!) 

Black and White Bearded Bust (from Orange and Yellow Play-doh)

It turns out that this particular shade of orange Play-doh comes out as an extremely overpowering color when rendered in HDR. It is far more palatable when rendered in black and white. (The head was made of orange; yellow was used for the hair.) It also turns out, that when I was shooting this close-up at F-stop f/1.8, the eyes came into focus very well, but the nose and facial hair came out... looking a little bit... smudged.

Black (Play-doh) Bust

Here's another picture of some fun with Play-doh. Once again, I merged together 11 exposures in Photomatix (and then carried it over to Aftershot Pro for the cropping). The HDR process really brings out the texture (wrinkles and all, which is what I really like about what the process has done to this face. I told my wife that this particular image was begging for a caption; any suggestions?)

Yellow (Play-doh) Bust

Ok, so this one creeped my children out a little bit. I brought home a doll today, from which I disemboweled the eyes (the part that creeped my kids out). Then, I took the doll eyes (which turned out to be the half circle variety) and worked them into the head of this bust that I sculpted out of Play-doh. Fusing 11 exposures (1 apart, -5 to +5) together in Photomatix, I took the result over to Aftershot Pro (for cropping) and... voila!

Slight Bend in the Road

I liked the bend in the road on this particular picture, as well as the vanishing point as you follow the road around the curve and into the distance. (In the northern parts of Michigan's lower peninsula.)

Farm Outbuildings in the Country

 

This is another post examining the same image processed in two different ways. First up is the HDR image (pseudo-HDR?) from three different exposures (-2, 0, +2), two of which were generated in Corel Aftershot Pro from a RAW file; all three exposures were saved as 16-bit TIF files and then were sent through Photomatix. The second image is the Photomatix processed version of the original RAW file. The same settings were used on both files.

Thoughts: Adding the darker exposure into the mix certainly seems to bring out something... dark in the 3 exposure processed version. Compared to the 'original' original file, the HDR versions both seem to have a little bit of 'pop' (the day itself, as you can see, was overcast, and I was shooting through a glass window besides...). In the end, what really jumps off the screen is the redness of the buildings, which are brighter in the single-processed version. I'm hard pressed to say which one I like better.

3 exposures:

1 exposure:

Looking out over Mackinac Island from the Fort

Going back through my old Mackinac Island photos, I found (what I think, at least, is) a classic fort view of the island (with the Father Marquette statue and the harbor area on the left, downtown on the right, and Lake Huron in the background.)

This particular photo went through all sorts of edits to get to where it is here. For HDR, I manufactured two additional exposures. (I couldn't get the single image file to turn out quite the way I wanted it to turn out, so I tried using multiple exposures.) The original also needed a crop (as the HDR brought out some otherwise barely noticeable water/dust spots in the sky... yuck!)

Dwightwood Springs on Mackinac Island

I love the irony of the sign posted overhead at the Dwightwood Springs on Mackinac Island. It reads (in red letters, all caps): "Water Unsafe for Drinking".

It is an interesting stone structure, if you're into stone structures. This picture was taken a few years ago on my Canon XTi (the JPEG file was processed through Photomatix). Thinking through my next visit, I would like to try some different angles (this one was probably shot from a bicycle) and maybe get a little bit closer in to crop at the benches.

Cloudy Mountain Simulation

I don't live anywhere near mountains or volcanoes or anything quite so scenically exotic, yet I took this image within a few miles of my home.

The secret? It's a boulder, a large rock that was set in the grassy median between the sidewalk and the street. Captured at the right angle, it looks something like a mountain. And, with the snowy shadows in the background, you may even think for a moment that there is some kind of volcanic activity taking place.

Below is the uncropped version of the same image:

(Play-doh) Polar Bear at Sea

There are times when it's simply too cold to take my camera outside. (Ok, I know there are folks who live in even colder climates than mine, but... run with me here.) Rather than wait until the sun starts shining again, I look for indoor photo ideas. With a couple of cans of Play-doh (either the name brand, off-brand, or homemade variety) you can create a scene in which you are not actually worried about your camera frosting up, battery draining, lens cracking, (the sky falling), etc.

BW HDR in the Choir Loft

With my background in music, the choir loft touches a special place in my heart. Having sung in church choirs from kindergarten through postgraduate years, I spent quite a bit of time in choir lofts and around pipe organs, etc. While I have never sung in this particular choir loft, I couldn't resist taking pictures and then merging them HDR-style via Photomatix. (I also applied the Noise Ninja from Corel Aftershot Pro.) Sony NEX-6. 

Snowy Winter Sunrise

Yesterday's sunrise photograph was made from three exposures (-3, 0, +3) that were shot handheld (Sony NEX-6), processed in Photomatix 5, and then sent through Corel Aftershot Pro for the Noise Ninja (to tone down some of the grainier dark points). 

Frosted Greens with Winter Crystals Growing on them

Here's another image from a last week, when the temperatures and the humidity were such that they produced (are allowed the conditions to produce) these crystalline ice/snow formations on the leaves and branches. (The wind was also such that these branches were in constant motion, so I simply sent one exposure through Photomatix.)

An Intriguing Mess of a Winter Tree

There is something to this photograph of a couple of days ago that intrigues me. In itself, I wouldn't say that it's the prettiest picture. As a composition, it seems rather a mess! The tree trunk coming up the middle of the picture is the only element that has any rhyme or reason to it. From there, everything shoots off in wild directions with all sorts of twists and turns and curves. If it were a maze, one could never find his way out. If it were a knotted ball of string, one could never get it untied. As displeasing as it might be for form and structure, I still processed this photo (3 exposures) and afterward have found myself taking a few minutes of pause for reflection.

As I said, there is something about this photograph that draws me in -- to figure out just what exactly is going on. And, in consideration of what I am looking for in a photograph, an image that grabs your attention for more than the typical 2 seconds for further contemplation and consideration must certainly have something going for it.

Filling a Gray Winter Sky with Tree Branches

The winter sky yesterday was quite gray. We had fog in the morning and evening, and we were looking at the possibility of snow from the afternoon on. (It didn't exactly sound like the most ideal situation for taking pictures, did it?) 

I took my NEX-6 outside and looked around for some color (ha,ha!) -- and what did I find? Some dead leaves clinging to a branch. It was a little bit of orangey-brown in an otherwise gray world. Lining myself up underneath the leaves and shooting up into the treetop (f-stop f/4.5 for those of you who are keeping track; three exposures -3, 0, +3 for merging on Photomatix). I set Photomatix to 'handheld' for the processing, but I also used the selective deghosting tool to circle the bottom right corner (basically, where the leaves and the branch are,) as there was enough wind going to make significant movement. 

The result? I like what I see going on in the background here. And - for a winter day on which you might not have been expecting to find much, there were some nice crystallization effects going on in the trees. 

Please, Little Zoo Bird in a Very Dark Room, Hold Still

It's ok. You can go ahead and ask: "What were you thinking!"

I was shooting this little zoo bird in an extremely dark room, where the bird was set in his own extremely dark little section of the room. I was shooting through some kind of mesh screen (you wondered how I got that nifty line effect...). What's more, I was shooting with my Sony NEX-6 with my 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 Telephoto Lens attached, so that I could actually get in really close to the bird. Welcome to the world of blurry photos!

In order to capture this image, not only did I need to hold really still, but I also needed this pretty little zoo bird to hold really still... for at least eight-tenths of a second, which is an eternity in camera time (at least, when shooting animals). And, this bird seemed to have had his coffee that day, because he was moving around all over the place!

Looking back at these, some of them are simply painful! So, when I found one that was (mostly) in focus, I processed it (single image through Photomatix 5), and found that this really was a pretty little bird... if you could hold still... and get him to hold still... long enough to take his picture.

Shooting Indoors with No Tripod (Restaurant with Wine Bottle Decor)

So, sometimes you find yourself in places where it might be a little awkward to set up your tripod to get the shot that you would like. (As when, you don't want to embarrass your family too much in a fancy restaurant.) What do you do?

Well, for a number of shots, I tried putting my camera on the table, set the auto-bracketing, and tried to hold the camera down on the table as still as possible. It didn't really work the greatest, as many of the shots at the highest exposure turned out too blurry to be usable. (This was especially the case since I had my autobracketing set to 0, -3, +3. It may have turned out a little bit differently at 0, -1, +1.)

In order to get a steadier shot for this particular shot, I bumped my ISO up to ISO-800. (This made for a steadier, though perhaps more grainy, image.) My +3 exposure came out at 1/3 sec.

The +3 exposure came out sharp enough that I can make out the texture in the carpet, and I am even able to read some of the bottle labels at this exposure.

Here is the result of my 3-exposure merge in Photomatix:

So, what exactly is the moral of the story? If you're trying to shoot handheld on the autobracketing setting in a darker place, you might want to dial it back to 1 step (or possibly even 2 steps). (Bonus to you if you remember to fire a test shot, to see just how long said picture will take....) To help further speed the picture (less time = less shake/blur, etc.), you can dial up your ISO and take the grain as part of what it took to get the picture.   

Cairns on Mackinac Island

One of the pastimes of visitors to Mackinac Island is the practice of stacking rocks. Rock cairns (similar to the one here pictured) can be found all the way around the perimeter of the island. Over the past few years, I have made it a practice to document some of these 'rock sculptures' (hence the picture above). I look at them as art that is here today, re-stacked next year.

People in HDR Photography

According to 'the HDR photography code', you are advised to general avoid sending people through HDR processing. Some photographers take this 'rule' as more of a 'guideline' and proceed to HDR people anyway (to each his own), so I thought that we would talk a little bit about HDR and people in today's post.

HDR "reproduces a greater dynamic range of luminosity than possible using standard digital imaging or photographic technique" (thanks, Wikipedia). In other words, HDR can bring out details that you might not otherwise see in a photograph.

While this might be great for all sorts of subjects, when it comes to people, there are certain details that are perhaps 'better left unseen'. For example, take this HDR image of me, processed from a photo that was shot by my wife:

Wow! Looking at that picture of me, I feel awful! The HDR processing brings out all of the wrinkles, spots, and blemishes on my face. (Sorry, honey, but it's not exactly the most flattering picture of me.)

What I really did like about the HDR image, however, was that it really managed to bring out the reflection on the table, a reflection that was very much muted in the original image:

When it comes to HDR and people, some photographers will employ a 'work-around' trick to mix people into an HDR processed scene, which is what I eventually did with this photograph.

In a nutshell, you create a full image HDR, and then layer your HDR with the original image, and then erase out (or erase in, depending on your perspective) in desirable/undesirable parts, until... voila! You have not-HDRed people in an HDR-scene.

For this photo, I was mainly interested in the HDR for the effect that it had on the surface of the black table. I ran the whole thing through a black and white HDR preset, and then came back and layered my whole torso back in (from the table up), and then I also added in the colored wine bottles over my head from the original image (I liked the black and white, but I wanted a little more color), for this result:

If nothing else, it's a unique portrait. I'm pleased with the result (which, is what really matters, right?)