edorayPhotography

One more railing shot in Balboa Park. I took 5 photos for this one, all stabilized on a tripod, ranging from 4 stops under to 4 stops over. Brings out the rich color contrasts in the cement and the tonal changes in the bars.

Decided to try some of the railings in HDR. Every new type of photo add a new challenge with HDR. Here the tone mapping was especially tricky. Easy to over saturate.

I'll get it eventually ;) For those that don't understand HDR; it's basically a layering of 2 or more photos (usually an odd number), and then tonemapped to bring out the lightest and darkest components of the image. So, you start with a well exposed image, then take another a couple of stops under-exposed and one a couple of stops over-exposed. When they're merged together, you can map the tones to bring out the rich darks of the under-exposed image, and the high lites from the over-exposed image. Good results are hard to achieve, but like everything in photography, a lot of practice pays off eventually.

This is the pot that I discovered nearly a year ago, neglected and unnoticed out behind a museum in Balboa Park. I took 5 images of this scene, all with a 2 f-stop difference, using a tripod to stead the images, and then tone-mapped them in Photomatrix Pro.

This is the first photo I took of it, taken during the middle of winter, with the sun very low in the south (helping to create the background).

Took 3 images, one with the correct exposure, one 2 f-stops over and one 2 f-stops under, then tone-mapped them in Photomatrix Pro, bringing out the rich dark tones of the under-exposed image, and the highlights of the over-exposed one.