Saturday, January 16, 2010

Great interview in Photo mag

One of my college buddies was interviewed in a photography magazine.  I'd never heard of this magazine but it's a great interview anyway. :)  So here's the link to a PDF of the magazine, his name is Chris Walters. Enjoy!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

HDR

This isn't something that you would use shooting sports but I've been playing with it a bit and using it for my work lately so I thought I might share.  I'm no expert, far from it, in fact if anyone has any tips for me I'd appreciate it.   But you can make HDR images quite easily in photoshop.  I do a simple 2 stop bracket (set AEB in camera and shoot in motordrive mode) I shoot 3 images, one at 0, one at +2 and one at -2.  Then it's just a matter of going into photoshop under File>Automate>Merge to HDR

 


 pick your 3 images


Photoshop will automatically merge the images into one.


You really need to use a tripod, if the images are not exact it will show.  If you're shooting a person they need to stand very still.  If they move during one of the shots it will have ghosting or be blurry.  This works great for landscapes and architectural stuff.


Here's an example of an interior shot I did using this method.



 

The effect is subtle, with the HDR image I get a lot more detail and texture in the dark rug and in the shadow areas and the windows are a bit brighter. It was a dreary Seattle late afternoon, so the light was really that blue outside. 

Monday, January 11, 2010

Raffle day is here!


I took all the entries across the street to my neighbor Evelyn so she could draw the winner.  Drum roll please, and the winner is.............John Rowland!!!    Congratulations John, I'm sure you will love your new ThinkTank bag.  Thanks to everyone who entered and special thanks to Brian Erwin at ThinkTank for donating the bag for the raffle.  ThinkTank not only makes great bags, their customer service is second to none.