flatchicken.com

I’ve been messing around with creating HDR (high dynamic range) photos for quite some time. In the past, I did this with the “increase dynamic range” setting for Fred Miranda’s Velia Vision Plugin for Photoshop (not really HDR, I know). In the past few months, I’ve realized that there are MUCH better ways to accomplish this, which include shooting multiple exposures of the same scene, and then combining them into a single shot.

Here are some of my first “successful” attempts at getting the correct exposures. These were created by exposure bracketing on the Canon Digital Rebel XTi, and then combining / toning the exposures with Photomatix. My main goal here was to work on the correct exposure bracketing settings, as well as the correct toning in Photomatix. There are some big flaws with the image alignment of the three exposures (these were all shot hand-held – tripod highly recommended). The result is some funny looking halos around the clouds (and other stuff), but I was too lazy to go back in to Photoshop and fix all the issues.

Maybe I’ll find a really good “subject” for my shoot, and I’ll go through a full Photoshop treatment.

Wow; it’s been a long time since I’ve been around here.  Time flies when you’re havin’ fun   Here’s two little ditties from my Father’s Day outing to the Tigard Festival of Balloons.

I guess I would consider this my first “successful” HDR image.  I have still have ALOT to learn, but I successfully combined three exposures (hand held!) and did an *ok* job toning.  I also had a fun tram ride up the hill with my son!

One of my favorite bridges – the Hawthorne in downtown Portland.

Oregon Wine Country, in Newberg, OR.

Taken from the top of Mt. Paulina, in Bend, OR. A huge lava flow sits between two lakes at the foot of the Volcano. You barely see a little line atop the flow, which is a freeway. The lava was about 20′ – 30′ high.

We spent this father’s day at the coast in Newport, visiting the beach and the Oregon Coast Aquarium: