Tag Archives: High Dynamic Range

Walk About at The Entrance Reply

Australia, Birds, Equipment, HDR, Landscapes, Structures, Techniques, Travel, Walk-About Series • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

WALK ABOUT AT THE ENTRANCE

Have you ever heard the name of a place and had little clue as to what it was?

Well The Entrance is one of those places for me. And no I wasn’t that dumb not to work out that it was likely where a river met the sea, but that was about it.

But that isn’t why I went.

Jetty on Tuggerah Lake

A number of Photographers’ have taken some really cool images of some Jetties that are in the water there. Tuggerah Lake as it turns out.

The Entrance is actually where Tuggerah Lake meets the Pacific Ocean via a tidal channel at it’s southern end.

Timing is everything they say. I happened to be attending an Australian Institute of Photography (AIPP) event (called The Event wouldn’t ya know) in The Hunter Valley. So on the way home I made a slight detour and went and had a look for myself.

The term Long Jetty seems to be bandied about when referring to these jetties. As it turns out, Long Jetty is actually a suburb located on a peninsula between Tuggerah Lake and the Pacific Ocean. And… it isn’t one jetty, but three, called: Parrys Jetty, Walkins Jetty, and of course, Long Jetty.

Tuggerah Lake

The Entrance is around 100km (60 miles) north of Sydney and is a coastal resort type of place. A spot you go to on the weekend to hang out, have some good food, and simply mess around at the beach.

The Jetties themselves are nothing spectacular if taken as single structures, but the fact that there are three of them relatively close together, and how they are situated on the lake make them worth a look, and a photograph or two.

On The Jetty

The sun sets straight down the end of the jetty and goes down behind the hill is in the background. So if you are lucky and the right atmospheric conditions prevail the sky is extremely vibrant, as is the reflection off the water.

It wasn’t so great when I was there (not bad though), but I have seen some absolutely spectacular photographs by others. One such photographer worth checking out is Ken Duncan.

Setting Sun

Shallow coastal areas are cool places to see some bird life. No surprise to see the perennial tourist bird, The Pelican strutting around everywhere.

I was surprised to see so many Black Swans. We had them at our house when I was a kid growing up, so I am very familiar with these dudes. My job was to clean their swimming pond… and as a small kid I used to get the stuffing knocked out of me by a big male (called Dudley) who thought he owned the place.

All up the place is worth a visit. Whether it be to simply have some fish and chips near the beach, or to go and take some photos of the Jetties.

Pelicans, Black Swans & a few Ducks

Well That’s It…. See You There!

Photo of the Month – September 2012 Reply

Australia, HDR, Landscapes, Photo of the Month, Structures • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Well here is the next photo of the month in the series. As usual I have provided at the end of the post, the very next image that was taken after this one.

September 2012 - LENNOX BRIDGE

Lennox Bridge in Glenbrook

This photo was actually the one that I set out to take and post last month. I got side tracked and ended up turning right, and not left. See Glenbrook Creek Photo of the Month post.

To get down the mountain from where we live you drive through a town called Glenbrook. Just as you enter the town precinct on the highway there is a sign saying LENNOX BRIDGE. I have driven passed this thing so many times in our short time here that I wanted to check it out. So today was the day.

The Lennox Bridge (also known as The Horseshoe Bridge) is a stone arch bridge designed by David Lennox.

From Lennox’s Biography by J.M. Antill – Lennox’s first bridge was on the main western road at Lapstone Hill. It is a graceful single arch of 20-feet (6 m) span and 30 feet (9 m) above water level, with a road width of 30 feet (9 m); it was constructed by a team of convicts using stone quarried near the site. By direction of the governor it was named Lennox Bridge and the keystones bear the name of its builder and the date 1833. It is the oldest bridge still standing on the mainland of Australia, and for ninety-three years it carried all the traffic from Sydney to the west; until 1963 it was still used by vehicles traveling up Mitchell’s Pass on the initial climb over the Blue Mountains, although the main road was moved in 1926 to a better gradient by way of Knapsack Gully.

EXPOSURE SETTINGS

Exposures: 11

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/11

Shutter Speed: mid exposure = 0.5 seconds – 1/60th to 15 seconds

EQUIPMENT

Camera: Canon EOS-5D Mk III

Lens: Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L II

The exposures were tone-mapped in NIK Software HDR Efex Pro 2 and tidied up in Adobe Lightroom 4.

THE VERY NEXT PHOTO

Lennox Bridge in Glenbrook

The above image was the next one taken, and is simply a little further down the creek than the initial location.

That’s It… See You There!

Photo of the Month – August 2012 Reply

Australia, HDR, Landscapes, Photo of the Month, Travel • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Well here is the next photo of the month in the series. As usual I have provided at the end of the post, the very next image that was taken after this one.

August 2012 - GLENBROOK CREEK

Glenbrook Creek – The Blue Mountains National Park

Following on from last month’s photo, the exploration of my new greater neighborhood continues. Around 20 minutes further down the mountain from where we live is a town called Glenbrook.

Every time that I have been into the town I see a particular sign that says NATIONAL PARK ENTRANCE.

Being the park stalker than I am it finally got the better of me and I went and found this entrance and where it lead to. I didn’t have much time so I literally went in… then came out again. Mind you, I saw enough promise that I will definitely be going back for some exploration. With camera and water bottle.

I did however manage to take 1 photo. And I mean just 1. This one.

Not far in from the main entrance is a small creek, and looking at the depth markers on the road, it turns into a bigger creek when it rains. In fact there was water running across the road when I was taking this image. My tripod was actually in the slight overflow to get this shot.

EXPOSURE SETTINGS

Exposures: 11

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/11

Shutter Speed: mid exposure = 0.5 seconds – 1/60th to 15 seconds

EQUIPMENT

Camera: Canon EOS-5D Mk III

Lens: Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L II

THE VERY NEXT PHOTO

Bus Stop in Glenbrook

After I left the creek I headed over to Lennox Bridge (my original destination on this particular day)… the subject of a future photo of the month.

On the way, adjacent to a school is this bus stop. Many of the bus stops in the area are painted in similar fashion. Looks better than the typical vandalistic graffiti (as opposed to good urban art, which I like).

So I stopped and got my kit out and took a quick HDR image of it. I got the odd ‘look’ from the locals, but that is nothing new.

There is a lot of distortion in the image (see telegraph poles) simply as I got as close as I could to try and get some of this effect (and had the lens all the way out to 16mm with a full frame sensor), plus my butt was on the road as it was so I couldn’t really back up much further anyway.

That’s It… See You There!

Photo of the Month – July 2012 Reply

Australia, HDR, Landscapes, Photo of the Month, Techniques, Travel • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Well here is the next photo of the month in the series. As usual I have provided at the end of the post, the very next image that was taken after this one.

July 2012

The Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains

Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains

Well having recently moved here to live I thought it an opportune time to show you my new back yard.

We have lived in five (5) countries during the last 16 years or so, and this is our third time rotating through Sydney. So we thought we would live in the beautiful World Heritage listed Blue Mountains.

The above location must be one of the most visited, and subsequently photographed icons in Australia (Sydney Opera House and Bridge, and Ayers Rock being a few others). For what it is worth, I have climbed over the top of the Bridge and Ayers Rock, but yet to see a major show in the Opera House.

It is The Three Sisters at Echo Point in Katoomba in The Blue Mountains – about a 2 hour drive north west of Sydney.

Taking a photo from this exact spot, while not difficult, is somewhat frustrating as it is also where every person and their dog is trying to take the same photo, or of them with it.

If you happen to turn up on a busy day it is safe to say… that if you have a tripod and some dopey looking remote control contraption hanging around your neck… then you are likely the only one. And with that comes the invariable… ‘excuse me but can you take our photo’. There must be a cool business angle in there somewhere for some young entrepreneur looking to make some cash and help out some friendly tourists.

For me, doing HDR of the Sisters is all about the sky. Nearly every time that I have turned up here during our short time back in Australia there hasn’t been a solitary cloud in the sky, making for a moderately boring end result. The rock outcrops and mountains always look good so that is a given.

I am yet to take a photo here that I am happy with. A good excuse to keep going back. There are worse places to hang out.

I took this photo last week. After doing so I went for a stroll around one of the paths and happened upon some Chinese tourists. After chatting with them for awhile, as it happened, I had actually been to their city just outside of Shanghai (we lived in both Beijing and Shanghai).

EXPOSURE SETTINGS

Exposures: 11

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/16

Shutter Speed: mid exposure = 0.3 seconds – 1/100th to 10 seconds

EQUIPMENT

Camera: Canon EOS-5D Mk III

Lens: Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L II

Singh-Ray LB Color Combo Polarizer

Tripod: GITZO Systematic Carbon Series 3

Ball-Head: Really Right Stuff BH-55

Camera ‘L’ Plate: Really Right Stuff

HDR Sequencing Remote: PromoteControl

THE VERY NEXT PHOTO

Well nothing fancy about this photo.

I was trying to have my lunch not far from where I took the above photo (near the Katoomba Falls). Grabbed a sandwich from the local deli and was eating it near my car.

Then buggalugs here (he was a bit more than a foot high) flew in and stood right in front of my face (could touch him) waiting for his piece. Against my better judgment I finally gave him a piece, and just as I did a Magpie flew in and stole it.

Teach him him to give me the Big Yellow Eye!

Grey Pied Currawong if you are interested.

Grey Pied Currawong

That’s It… See You There!

My New Back Yard 1

Australia, Equipment, HDR, Landscapes • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well this entry, while short, incorporates a few firsts for me.

It is the first entry written on my iPad (using the WordPress app), it incorporates some Instagram photos, and is the first written from Australia.

After living overseas in various countries for the second time (this time for around 12 years) it was time to come home so that our kids could get a couple of years in high school before starting University. They needed to get into a southern hemisphere calendar, learn how to speak our version of English… and just as importantly… get to know what Cricket and Aussie Rules Football is all about. And eat an aussie meat pie with tomato sauce… while watching the football. We may be at the bottom of the planet, but we have our priorities straight.

20120527-062443.jpg

Arriving in Sydney on Instagram

This rotation had us in Beijing and Shanghai in China, and the north east of the U.S.A. in Cleveland, Ohio – where they filmed some of the battle scenes for the Marvel blockbuster The Avengers; home to The Drew Carey Show; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and source of the Charlie Sheen movies about the luckless Cleveland Indians baseball team – ‘Major League’.

We have lived in Sydney two times before, and while it is certainly one of the nicer large cities on the planet… It is still a large and busy city. So this time we elected to go semi-urban and move to the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains at Day Break

From a photography standpoint there is certainly no shortage of things to point your camera at. On the downside side though, given what this place actually is and how popular it is – it will no doubt be challenging to find that particular place or subject that hasn’t already had ample happy snaps taken of it… from every angle imaginable.

I have only been out once (just after I landed)… more to get over jet lag than anything else, so I have not had a decent look around as yet. I took these three images within a couple of hours of each other in different parts of the mountain.

The first one (above) was actually my first photo taken (ever) in our new home. It is a 7 shot HDR taken with a Canon 5D MkIII, with an EF16-35 f/2.8L II lens with a Singh-Ray LB Color Combo Polarizer, a Really Right Stuff ball-head on a Gitzo carbon fiber tripod, and a PromoteControl remote. I managed to carry this on the plane with me on the trip back (the mother-load of my gear is hopefully on a ship… and will equally hopefully turn up in one piece in a few months).

The location is Wentworth Falls. As the name would suggest there is an actual waterfall… quite a beautiful one. It is around to the left from where I am standing (see below photo). It looks like about a day trek to get down to a good spot to take a decent photograph of them, so that is a photo op for another day.

Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains

The last photo that I took was probably of one of the most photographed icons in the mountains, if not all of Australia (Sydney Opera House and Bridge being a couple of others). It is of the Three Sisters rock formation at Echo Point near Katoomba. Same sort of deal here as with the Falls, while the tourist lookout offers some great views (where I was standing when I took the below photo), as a consequence, there is nothing great or unique about the photo… and one that has likely been taken  a bajillion times before from the exact same spot. I see some more research and trekking in my future.

The ‘Sisters’ range in height from 922, 918 & 906 metres tall, respectively, which makes them more than 3,000 feet above sea level. You can check out the Legend of how they were formed here.

The Three Sisters at Echo Point

On my brief drive around the mountain I of course located the local camera store. Katoomba Camera House… so if  you are ever in the neighbourhood drop in and meet owner Steve. Friendly and nice guy. I am on a huge commission, so buy something while you are there.

So I am looking forward to the rest of my stuff turning up on the boat, and to exploring my new back yard. If anyone has some cool suggestions on where to go please drop me a note. Thanks.

That’s It… See You There!

INDYCAR on the Streets of St. Petersburg Reply

Equipment, HDR, IndyCar - IRL, Motorsports, Sport, Techniques, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So what do INDYCARS and Planes have in common…. to roughly quote Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights…. ‘they go fast!’.

… Same deal as usual… if reading doesn’t float your boat, you can jump straight to the photos. READ NOT… LOOK AT PHOTOS NOW.

Details and specs on how the photos were taken and with what gear is included along the way. Some with the relevant photos, and some at the end. Please send me a note if you would like more detailed info or explanation.

So how fast?… well an IndyCar will get to around 220-240 mph, while a WWII North American P-51 Mustang will cruise at 362mph/580kmh (top speed of 437mph/703kmh). Now while the Mustang may seem to have the advantage, I would expect the sensation of speed when you are only a few inches from the ground at 200+mpg in an IndyCar compared to flying at 40,000 feet (usually much lower) must feel like you are literally ‘flying’.

To get a better appreciation for the speed and power I took the opportunity for the sake of interest to get to a photographer ‘hole’ a little beyond turn 2 in St. Petersburg recently. From here the cars are coming out of slight turn, then putting their boot into it… and they go past this hole literally inches from your (my) face. Yes it was freak’n loud, with rubber and other crap hitting you in the face… and unless you were dead or just plain stupid… it was a tad on the scary side. If something happened with a car, or it tossed a bit of road shrapnel, there was absolutely no way in hell to do anything about it. You would be toast. I took some cool photos from here, then got the hell out of there and headed for safer locales around the track.

So getting back to the story of IndyCars and Planes. I was heading down to Tampa for a large air show called Sun’n'Fun, which is held annually in Lakeland (just outside Tampa) at the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. As chance would have it, the opening round of the 2012 INDYCAR season was being held on the Streets of St. Petersburg (right next to Tampa) the weekend before. I had not been to this race before, and as I prefer open wheel road course racing (compared to ovals) I headed off a few days early. I had also met Dan Wheldon a few times before, so it would also be nice to be there for his memorial race (many of the photos in the slide show were taken from Dan Wheldon Way… a street named after him).

For those familiar with the much larger EAA Air Venture OshKosh Air Show, the Sun’n'Fun show is a similar concept. Many people fly their own planes in and camp out. During the days there are vendor displays, training workshops, and a structured air show each afternoon. As you would expect, a lot of the people attending are avid aviation enthusiasts, with many building their own aircraft. I include a couple of happy snaps below of some planes at the air show, but will follow up with a future blog.

So back to the Streets of St. Petersburg.

I spent a lot of race day with my head out the photographers’ hole on turn 10, which as it turned out was Dan Wheldon Way. Nice spot. Marina in the background with some expensive looking boats doing little else but looking back at me.

Taking photos of race cars for me is both interesting and exciting. A lot of noise, color, and the always in the back of your mind ‘little you’ saying… if something goes wrong where you are standing it is not going to be a good day. Still, if it was boring who would want to do it. I am not very good looking anyway, so a lug nut scar on my forehead is not going to do much damage.

Below is a quick video snapshot of where I was for reference purposes. It was taken the day before the race during the practice session, hence you will see the cars running in single file, and being nice.

Once you have taken a few bajillion photos of the same thing… they all look the same (funny about that). What is the definition of stupid? Doing the same thing over and over again… and expecting a different result. Yep that sounds like me if you look at how many photos I have of the same thing. So this time I set out to just mess around. My objective was to get full frame photos (i.e. not crop afterwards), and to get shots where I could see the drivers face while running at speed. Either that, or close ups of the car… meaning that you couldn’t see the entire car.

Aussie Ryan Briscoe in St. Petersburg

Now while this sounds simple enough, because the subject is moving pretty fast, it becomes a test of what you want in focus… and managing to hold the camera focus point on it while it barrels passed you. I use ‘servo’ mode in these situations, which is pretty much the center focus point. I will also fire in bursts of around 3 photos at a time while tracking the car.

Ed Carpenter… followed by race winner Helio Castroneves

CAMERA SPECS FOR ON THE TRACK

Shutter Speed: 1/250th to 1/4,000th / Aperture: f/2.8 to f/5.6 / ISO: 200 to 500

I have my cameras setup with a custom function that changes what the buttons/dials do from standard…. if I am taking photos on the track (i.e. cars moving) I am always in Manual exposure mode. I set the shutter speed and aperture… then I modify exposure on the fly by only changing the ISO. You can set this to be an automatic function in the Canon EOS-1D_MkIV but the reaction time is too slow when the cars are running at speed and you are using servo focus and burst shooting mode. So… set what you want to freeze (shutter). Set how much depth of field you want (aperture).. then just change the sensor sensitivity (ISO) as needed… if you make this the rear dial it is pretty simple.

When the car is traveling laterally in front of you (i.e. from left to right across your field of view), you can use a much slower shutter speed, either to blur the actual car (or wheels), or pan with the car to blur the background. Both give the impression of speed to varying degrees. If you use a wide angle lens for this your latitude for keeping focus is far greater than a longer lens.

However when the car is moving towards or away from you your depth of field gets a little more challenging. For one thing the car is physically changing where it is in relation to the camera focus point, and quickly, but also because you are likely using a longer lens (200mm +), and generally a large’ish aperture (remember: large aperture = small f/stop number).

I like freezing these types of images (when the car is moving towards or away from you), as you can’t really see the tire walls (to show motion blur) so I will err on the side of a fast shutter speed if I have enough light (ISO) to make the math work. Generally around 1/1000th to 1/2,000th if I am getting the whole car (see Ed Carpenter photo above)… but if I am in tight (see Ryan Briscoe photo above) I may even go up to 1/4,000th depending on my distance relative to the car and its speed (tight corners are different than fast straight aways). The above images of Ed and Ryan are not cropped…. so they are in your view finder for a fraction of a second. To get them sharp (if that is your objective) you need to freeze them in an instant, and because I was after their actual faces, it was even more important to freeze them.

With Legend Mario Andretti on Pit Lane just before the race

One of the cool things about being in the center of the bee hive at these events is that you get to meet some really cool (and famous people). My wife laughs at me, but I always try and get a happy snap for my personal album. I think Roger Penske and Mario Andretti think I am a stalker by now… to their credit though, they also smile and let me do it.

On Pit Lane with Ryan Hunter-Reay’s car

As you can see in the above photo of me with the DHL car on pit lane (Ryan Hunter-Reay), I use a California Sunbounce ‘Press Harness’ when I am on the track. This is a great piece of gear. I hang the MkIV and the 70-200 on my right side, as this is my primary setup,  and the 5DMkII and one of the wide angle lenses on my left. I will sometimes have a Speedlite on each camera, but this gets cumbersome and you knock them around, so I will generally leave the flash on the 5D, and swap it if I need it on the longer lens. Why use it with the long lens I hear some of you ask?… puts a great catch light in a person’s eyes, and/or will brighten up some of the shadows on their face (particularly if they are wearing a hat).

Helio Castroneves loading up on Pit Lane

CAMERA SPECS FOR ON PIT LANE

Shutter Speed: 1/60th to 1/800th / Aperture: f/4 to f/11.0 / ISO: 200 to 400

On pit lane it is a different story than when the cars are moving at speed. Ideally you want a little more depth of field, and at times to include a bit more of the surrounding environment. Meaning that if you just show a driver sitting in their car (which you will need to do and should do)… they could be anywhere. But if you add some context to the scene you can tell a story in a picture (see Helio image above of him getting in his car with his pit crew). You will generally be using a wide angle lens due to how close you are, and how much you need to get in the frame. So your aperture will be smaller (small aperture = large f/stop number), and you will also gain a lot of depth of field due to the nature of how a wide angle lens work (a story for a different day). Also depending our where you position the lens, you can also get some very cool looking perspective distortion effects.

As noted earlier on in the story… toss a flash on your camera. You will thank yourself later. Try the experiment. Shoot some in aperture priority… no flash. Chances are you will have a lot of shadows… or a very blown out sky. Light up the subject with a Speedlite (if appropriate) and fool the camera with respect to what the overall exposure is… it will look cool. You should have a dial on your camera that allows you to alter the exposure compensation (of the camera)… under expose what the camera wants to do by a stop or so. There should also be a button/dial on the camera (or on your flash) that does the same thing… but for the flash (only). Over expose this… as the camera will fire it in TTL  mode using the original exposure settings… so the overall photo will be underexposed. So again you need to fool the camera. Crank the flash up (most Speedlites will go up around +2 f/stops). You will be surprised at how much you can crank this dial without over exposing your subject, especially when you are out in the blazing sun.

Helio Castroneves

Sun…. so invariably this will mean that your camera will be firing at a higher shutter speed than the sync speed of the flash (unless you really stop the lens down, and even this may not be enough). So don’t forget to set your flash to Hypersync mode… meaning that it will work with high shutter speeds. Most DSLRs sync around 1/200th (some slower… some faster). Out in the sun your shutter could be 1/800th or more? In hypersync the flash doesn’t fire just once, but a gazillion times while the shutter is open. Therein lies a small issue that you may need to deal with in your settings. In hypersync the Speedlite is unable to give you its full output (remember how many times and how fast it is firing), so to compromise you may need to trade something (usually shutter speed).

Helio Castroneves

On Pit Lane I will nearly always fire the flash, as it allows you to underexpose the background a little to get some more saturated colors (great for making the sky go really blue)… then you light up the actual subject with the flash. An OK example of this is the above image with Helio getting in his car. With no flash the sky and clouds would have been really blown out to get him and the car reasonably exposed. You can see the flash highlight on the closest wheel to the camera. I actually had it pointed slightly to the right so that it wouldn’t overexpose him, while picking up some of the number 9 (Scott Dixon) car… you can see how it has lit up the back wheel. I had the camera compensation dialed down about a stop and a half, and had the flash compensation cracked up a full 2 stops.

Helio Castroneves just after winning the race

Well that’s it.

I leave you with a photo of Helio Castroneves celebrating his win with Dan Wheldon’s road sign on turn 10. This photo was actually used as the lead for the official race website (see it here).

See the photos from INDYCAR St. Petersburg here.   INDYCAR on the Streets of St. Petersburg – 100 Photos / 4 Minutes.

CAMERA GEAR THAT I HAD ON ME

Canon EOS-1D MkIV

Canon EOD-5D MkII

Canon EF70-200 f/2.8L II

Canon EF24-70 f/.8L

Canon EF16-35 f/2.8L II

Canon Speedlite 580EX II

Photo of the Month – April 2012 Reply

HDR, Photo of the Month, Techniques, Travel, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Well here is the next photo of the month in the series. As usual, as an added bonus (at huge expense to management) I have provided at the end of the post, the very next image that was taken after this one.

April 2012 - Sun’n'Fun Air Show

At Rest

Across the U.S. there are a vast number of aircraft enthusiasts, and many of them belong to the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). The association has a number of events across the country, with the largest being AIR VENTURE, which is held annually at OshKosh in Wisconsin. I attended this event several years ago and was fortunate to take a ride in one of the Aeroshell Aerobatics planes during the actual airshow, and watched the then new Airbus A380 land on the runway in front of us on its inaugural visit to America. Up close this was one hump’n big plane… I have since flown on in many times as a paying customer… and it is still a hump’n big plane, even from the inside.

Sucky quality photo below. I simply downloaded it from my Facebook page. That’s me in the back seat. A buddy in another plane took this photo (and I took his in return). There are four planes who do the show… and you are literally feet apart at the wingtips. These planes are  AT-6 Texans and were nicknamed “The Pilot Maker”. They were not used in combat, but for training pilots during WWII. You can check out some photos and videos of the Aeroshell team here.

Yours Truly Taking a Ride

At the other end of the country, also held annually, in Lakeland Florida, is the Sun’n'Fun Airshow.

Both of these events are what are called ‘fly in’, meaning that people actually fly-in their own personal planes and literally camp out under the wings. It is an amazing site to see. More planes than cars. I have heard that the OshKosh control tower is reported to be the busiest in the World for the week of the Air Venture show. I don’t know if that is true or not, but the air looks like it has confetti as there are so many aircraft buzzing around… so if it isn’t, I would like to know another one as busy at this on a given day.

Air Venture has around 500,00-750,000 people show up depending on the year, with around 10,000 aircraft flying in. Sun’n'Fun around 250,00 people and 5,000 aircraft.

The Photo of the Month above is one of the Warbirds at the Sun’n'Fun show earlier this year. The goal of the Warbird program is “to promote and encourage the preservation and safe operation of ex-military aircraft, better known as Warbirds”.

That particular day wasn’t so great for taking photos as it was very sunny, and as you can see from the shadow under the plane, it was still fairly high in the sky when I took this.

It is a 7 shot HDR. I was hoping to find one of these planes with the propeller blade in a different angle so that it broke up the dead space near the engine (you can just see part of one prop on the left leading into the wing). I did manage to capture some better propeller positions on other planes, but from front on, which provided a different feel to the photo as you were now looking up into the plane and the underside of the wing, and not along and through the line of the fuselage.

I cranked up the blue a little too much in the sky in the processing,  but I liked the look of the plane. I would have preferred that there was all shadow on the grass under the plane, but there wasn’t enough cloud to wait for a time that this would work.

If ever you are around OshKosh or Lakeland when these air shows are on they are worth a look, even if you aren’t into planes.

EXPOSURE SETTINGS

Exposures: 7

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/18

Shutter Speed: mid exposure = 0.3 second – 1/25th to 2.5 seconds

Focal Length: 16mm (full frame sensor)

EQUIPMENT

Camera: Canon EOS-5D Mk II (Mk III wasn’t out yet – have it now… worth the trade up)

Lens: Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L II

Singh-Ray LB Color Combo Polarizer

Tripod: GITZO Systematic Carbon Series 3

Ball-Head: Really Right Stuff BH-55

Camera ‘L’ Plate: Really Right Stuff

HDR Sequencing Remote: PromoteControl

SOFTWARE

Adobe Lightroom 3 (version 4 wasn’t out yet)

Adobe Photoshop (CS 5)

NIK Software HDR Efex Pro

Kubota Image Tools Dashboard Pro (photoshop actions)

THE VERY NEXT PHOTO

On The Move

That’s It… See You There!

Photo of the Month – March 2012 Reply

HDR, Photo of the Month, Techniques, Travel, U.S.A., Urban Art • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Well a lot of others seem to be doing this, so I thought I would add mine to the list… and who said I wasn’t a trend setter?

The intent is to simply provide some basic technical info on how and where the photo was taken… and a photo. Unlike most others I have seen where the posted photo was taken ‘that month’, I am going to choose them from my archives irrespective of when they were taken.

Why… put simply, it provides me with a good excuse to revisit some of these images (and memories) that I have not had cause to look at for some time, and as I travel so much I could not hand-on-heart post one every week and say that I took it that month.

So… onwards and upwards to the first one.

As an added bonus (at huge expense to management) I will also provide at the end of each photo of the month post, the very next image that was taken after this one, be it good or bad.

March 2012 – An Alley in Detroit, Michigan

Art or Decay

As a family we have lived in 5 different countries, with our last stint being in the U.S.A. before just recently relocating back to Australia.

Within reason we have tried to take a family vacation somewhere in each of these countries each year so that we could see more of our adopted home other than just our current city.

On this occasion it was my choice… more of a veto really. We knew that we would be leaving the U.S.A. sooner rather than later, and visiting The Henry Ford Museum in Detroit had been on my ‘to see’ list for some time, so much to my wife and daughter’s chagrin, Detroit Michigan it was.

We stayed downtown not far from Ford Field (home to the Detroit Lions NFL football team). As it happened there was a game on while we were there, so our hotel was full of face painted beer drinking football fans from both teams. From memory they were playing the famous Green Bay Packers (on a different trip I managed to see the Green Bay stadium in Green Bay Wisconsin). The Detroit Tigers Major League Baseball field was also next door, so I managed to take some cool HDR images of the big cement tigers that guard the main entry gates.

Anyway to get back to my story.

Like many big cities in America there is a juxtaposition between places you want to go and have a look at, and those that if sensibility prevailed you wouldn’t go, ever. So on one side of our hotel we had the stadiums and all the nicer elements, and on the other side, not so nice if you got off the beaten track.

I happen to like taking photos of urban art (a.k.a. Graffiti). I don’t condone the vandalism element of it, but in certain areas if done well (and with permission) it does have artistic appeal, rather than just ‘tagging’ a piece of real estate. Unfortunately however, much of what you see falls into the Urban Decay or Vandalism category.

Good or bad depending on your perspective, Detroit has ample opportunity to see it up close.

As I have noted in some of my other posts, I tend to wander around the streets when I am in a new place. Sure there is a risk factor associated with this folly, but if you use some common sense and aren’t a dumb-arse about it, it is usually OK. If you do it enough you tend to get tuned into your surroundings a little more, and like all good adventurers you have an escape route in mind in case you need to skedaddle. Fortunately I have not had to put into action ‘escape route run like hell’ yet, but I have done the odd about face and kept on walking trick on more than one occasion.

To get to ‘good’ graffiti you have to invariably go into places that aren’t so nice. The above photo was taken in once such place. While wandering around I found this shitty back alley, which for the most part appeared to be the back end of some average looking restaurants. So as you can imagine there were a number of crappy looking (and smelly) large garbage tanks, rats as big as small cats, liquid waste of some kind running on the ground in ruts, and it was just plain nasty.

I ended up being in here for about 20 minutes and took several HDR sequences from both ends of the alley. There wasn’t much light hitting the walls so it was pretty dark.

My objective was to try and get a feel for not only the paint on the wall, but also the surroundings of where it was. So I set the camera up relatively low to the ground (below knee level) in order to capture some of the foreground, and with a trajectory that took in the wall, but also some of the main structure behind it in the alley.

EXPOSURE SETTINGS

Exposures: 7

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/8

Shutter Speed: mid exposure = 1 second – 1/8th to 8 seconds

Focal Length: 16mm (full frame sensor)

EQUIPMENT

Camera: Canon EOS-5D Mk II (Mk III wasn’t out yet – have it now… worth the trade up)

Lens: Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L II

Singh-Ray LB Color Combo Polarizer

Tripod: GITZO Systematic Carbon Series 3

Ball-Head: Really Right Stuff BH-55

Camera ‘L’ Plate: Really Right Stuff

HDR Sequencing Remote: PromoteControl

SOFTWARE

Adobe Lightroom 3 (version 4 wasn’t out yet)

Adobe Photoshop (CS 5)

NIK Software HDR Efex Pro

Kubota Image Tools Dashboard Pro (photoshop actions)

THE VERY NEXT PHOTO

I left the alley and walked a bit further (into some nicer areas). It had recently rained and I saw this fenced in area with some great reflections that was adjacent to an underground car-park. So I jumped a concrete wall (you can see it on the right hand side of the photograph), and had enough time to take one HDR sequence. This one. I then left as I wasn’t sure if I was really permitted to be in here or not… I guess the fence was a give-away.

Reflections in Detroit

That’s It… See You There!

My first crack at HDR 4

Equipment, HDR, Techniques, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , ,

First a bit from Trey Ratcliff’s website Stuck In Customs:

What is HDR Photography?

HDR is short for High Dynamic Range. It is a post-processing task of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.

An HDR image is commonly made by taking three photos of the same scene, each at different shutter speeds. The result is a bright, medium, and dark photo, based on the amount of light that got through the lens. A software process then combines all the photos to bring details to the shadows and highlights both. This helps to achieve the same task in the final photograph that the human eye can accomplish on the scene.

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HDR has always been on my list of things to try as it looks really cool when done well. Admittedly it isn’t for everyone, but I tend to prefer that saturated vibrant look.

So while my wife and kids went back to Australia for school break, I headed to Wyoming and Montana to have a look… with the objective of taking my first ever HDR images while taking in the sites.

The image below is not the first set of images that I took on the trip, but it was the first one that I processed. So officially this is my first ever HDR image. It is a composite of 7 images taken with a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV.

Yellowstone in July

While it is a bit labor intensive, the end results are both interesting to produce, and depending on your point of view, they don’t look too bad either. Note: on the official ‘sucki-ness’ measurement scale.. mine aren’t that good… but you have to start somewhere… on something.

So given that I don’t really know what I am doing yet… for anyone else in the same boat, this is how I did it as a first try.

As noted above, I chose to use my Mark IV D as I could get +/- 3 f-stops (in 7 images) in Auto Bracket (AEB) mode. I had my 5D MK II with me also,  but that would only capture 3 total images in AEB mode (note: the middle image is at the correct exposure for the frame)… the more the better was the thought process so I went with volume rather than common sense. In hindsight, 5 images (1 f-stop apart – one in the middle) is probably a good number… and the fact that your eye balls can’t see the full range of f-stops that this sort of range captures anyway makes capturing any more that 5 stops pretty much irrelevant anyway.

Forgotten in Montana

Tripod. Check! Even though it is a bit of a hassle to fly with… I tossed in my trusty Gitzo. Photoshop and the like say that they can handle a hand-held multi-shot merge, and maybe they can… but!

Really Right Stuff ball head as they are the best… no argument.

As for Lenses… I was pretty much limited to what I took with me in my carry on Lowepro bag. I was heading out to Montana to help a mate of mine shoot a Professional Bull Riding (PBR) event, so most of the kit in my bag was aligned to this project. I would have preferred to use a fixed focal length lens for these types of shots, but other than an EF14 f/2.8L II I had only zooms with me (albeit good Canon L versions).

For most of the shots that I ended up taking I settled on the EF24-70 f/2.8L, mainly because I wanted to use a Polarizing filter (EF14 doesn’t take one of these) and consequently I needed the front thread. Used a Singh-Ray Color-Combo Polarizer 77mm in this particular case.

In hindsight I don’t think the Polarizer was a good idea. In some of the images that have a lot of blue sky I was getting quite a bit of banding when I ran the images through the processor. Not sure if it was that.. or just the type of processing I was doing… need to check it out.

Also used a Timer Remote Control (Canon TC-80N3) to fire the shutter.

The Big Wheel

For the processing I used the relatively new NIK Software HDR Efex Pro… run from inside Photoshop CS-5. I also have HDRSoft Photomatix, but I have not used it at this point.

Once I had the images merged, and completed the primary editing inside the plug-in dashboard, I sent the new HDR image into Lightroom 3 for completion and exporting. All up the process was fairly painless and simple.

As to the results… well that is all a matter of opinion. More shooting… more practice.

One point to note: make sure that your sensor is damn clean… as every micro piece of dust will show up if you have a lot of open sky. Yes you can fix it in Photoshop… but let me tell you from new found experience… that is a royal pain in the butt.

Am I going to try again. For sure!.. and soon.

In the meantime, if you want to check out some decent HDR material, then take a look at Trey Ratcliff’s stuff at Stuck In Customs.