We all know the controversy around HDR, I personal have heard them all. I believe that HDR has a place in the photography world. I thought that I would show you rather than explain to you why HDR photography appeals to me so much.
Here are some HDR photographers from around the world worth following, each of these people has either influenced or inspired me in some ways. These photographers are unafraid and bold in the art that HDR is but none are fringe artists that use HDR to distort our world. Most are after the reality of what we see and make our perception of this world better and I thank them for it. If you know of more please add to the comments area.
In no special order here is my list, I follow each of these photographers and always look forward to their next post.
| Author name: | Elia Locardi |
| Website | blamethemonkey.com |
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| Some great travel photography that will make you wish you were there with the added bonus a few words of photographic wisdom well worth reading. | |
| Author name: | Miroslav Petrasko |
| Website | HDR Shooter |
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| Great photography from and around Europe with a really simple to follow tutorial. | |
| Author name: | Jim Nix |
| Website | Nomadic Pursuits |
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| Exquisite travel photography from around the globe that makes you dream and inspires. | |
| Author name: | Trey Ratcliff |
| Website | Stuck in Customs |
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| The travel photographer that turned me onto HDR. Photography, stories and tutorials all worth the time. | |
| Author name: | Klaus Herrmann |
| Website | farbspiel photography |
| Klaus Herrmann’s by-line is “View. Learn. Connect”. Need I say more? | |
All photographs show here are done so with the express authorisation from the copyright holder or/and are holding a CC licences.
Tags: HDR, High Dynamic Range
In my previous post I covered why I often do not take a tripod along with me. But there are other considerations worth the look when talking of panoramic photography. You will be told that to do a good panoramic photo you need some equipment that will help you greatly, a panoramic rotation unit and a Panoramic Head to get to the nodal point (pivot point), this is to avoid distortions and have better stitching and I agree then I look at my wallet and decide to do with what I have.
The truth is with a little practice and good photo stitching software, you can get amazing results and save on weight in you bag as well as avoiding to lighten up your wallet. As most photography techniques it all starts at the moment you press the shutter, the post-process will not be able to fix everything that you did not bother to take care of when you pressed that shutter, particularly with panoramic and HDR photography. my philosophy in photography is get the maximum right in camera.
Here are some tips I learned along the panoramic way:
- Before you pick up the camera to do the panoramic, look around, pre-visualise the final panoramic photo.
- Be careful, look up and down too, there might be something in the way.
- Turn around, there might just be a better place to take it from.
- Do your panoramic photograph sections in portrait
- Do a sweep or two of the scene through the viewfinder, it will give you the beginning and the end points. Again though the viewfinder as you sweep look up and down too.
- Try to avoid glare, flare and the sun.
- Be careful of moving objects as they may appear more than once in your final product.
- I usually take a shot of my left index finger or hand a the beginning of the panoramic sequence and my right one at the end, it makes it easier to identify the sequence in my asset management tool, Lightroom in this case.
- Set your focus to about 1/3 of the scene.
- Set your aperture as low as possible for handheld speeds relative to your lens, f/9 to f/22 and lower. for the speed, I use the length of the lens x2.5 for the speed, for example I have a 35mm I will not drop my speed bellow 90\s on a non stabilised lens and I never allow to go below a 60th.
- Get the exposure average through the scene and lock it or go manual! Most cameras have an exposure lock function, on Canon cameras it’s a star on the top right of the camera back, make use of it.
- Most modern cameras have a “rule of thirds” grid in the viewfinder, use it to keep level.
- Include about 30% more to the left and right of the panoramic.
- Overlap each section by about 30%.
- Stand steady and move on your hips, for each 4 sections or when you start stretching your back reseat yourself by moving you feet in a shuffling motion (in a small circle) whilst keeping your eye in the viewfinder and keeping the camera in the last position. This is a tip given by Scott Kelby that helped me a lot particularly in loosing less of the top and bottom part of the image when stitching and I am no longer twisting my back.
- Consider using the widest distortion free lens in your arsenal but not fisheye lenses as fisheye type effect is an example of unwanted distortion. The panoramic post process creates it’s own distortion, you do not want to add more to it.
Breathe and take your time, don’t expect to get it right first time, practice.
The post-processing is an entire different beast but if you get most of it right in camera, Photoshop Elements or CS will do the stitching brilliantly, both these programs have free trials at www.adobe.com. You do not have Photoshop Elements or CS and you own a Canon? Try Canon Photostitch, it’s not as good as Photoshop but it’s free. You cannot argue with that price!
Want more details in a difficult one shot photograph? Have you considered doing a panoramic? The ones above and bellow are even if it does not look like one.
One last word, all the photo shown in this post are handheld panoramic but also HDR, simply because I do both. Understanding the relationship between the two means both need to be learned individually first, I will be talking more about HDR photography soon.
Tags: How to, Panoramics, Techniques, Tips
Whilst I was working on my “How to create simple panoramic photographs” post I realised that I was writing about how to approach panoramic photography without a tripod. The truth of the mater is tripods are generally heavy and lately I have done without it. I ended up writing this travel photography post without realising it and thought I’d share it first. So here is why I did not carry a tripod very often.
Traveling with photography gear is painful, it’s heavy and most airlines limit you radically on luggage weight both checked-in and on board. My photo bag when fully loaded weighs about 17kg far exceeding the limits add a tripod to this and we are reaching the 20kg. I used to sacrifice clothing to be able to take more gear. I since learned that more gear does not make for better photos and is more cumbersome than it is worth.
So I plan my trips and the gear I’ll take. The first item to go has been my bulky heavy tripod for a lighter Carbon fibre model. The second was my big bag a Thinktank Airport Acceleration V2.0, I still have it but I bought a smaller one, the Thinktank Rotation 360, it is comfortable, accessible and relatively light but most importantly convenient. What it brings to the party is it’s size, it forces me to think what I will be shooting and plan for it.
The only items that are always in my bag are:
- A camera body, for now a Canon EOS 7D
- A camera strap, a Blackrapid RS-4 Classic, I recommend it or something similar.
- A few lens cloth, micro-fibre works but there are new great clothes around (I steal from my optometrist, it’s cheaper)
- A pen and small note pad
- A couple of tripod camera plates for the strap.
- Spare camera batteries
- Spare CF cards
- Lensbaby Scout with the the Fisheye, Soft Focus and Sweet 35 Optics (Light an versatile)
- A circular polarising filter
I regularly go down to Cape Town, I noticed that though I took my 100-400mm (1380g) and my 70-200mm (1310g) lenses (that is close to 3kg), I never used them because when I am in Cape Town I mostly shoot landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes so I mostly use my 16-35 wide angle lens. So I pack it now, I also use a 24-70mm (950g) lens enough to warrant it coming along for the trip. The only additional item over and above is a flash. This reduces my weight dramatically.
I also go to nature and wildlife parks, the bag configuration changes radically. The 100-400mm (1,380g) comes along for the trip but not the 16-35mm (635g), I will also take a 100mm Macro lens (625g) with a ring flash along, to shed weight I do not take my big flash (475g).
And lately, when I go photo walking, I only take one lens and sometimes the some Lensbabies along. Which lens you will ask? It will depend on the photo walk, but chances are that is will either be, more often than not, a 16-35mm (635g) or sometimes a 24-70mm (950g) though I suspect this will now be the lighter 24-105mm (670g) as soon as I get my elusive EOS 5D. Also, I will be taking my tripod on future walks, simply because it will force me to compose and think more, particularly with my HDR work and that the EOS 5D’s burst speed and 7 photo HDR bracket will not compensate for my moving anymore but that is in the future.
One last lens I think I should have with me always is the fantastic canon EF 50mm f/1.4 prime (290g), it’s not heavy. I keep on leaving it behind because on the EOS 7D it more an 80mm and it does not really work with what I do, with the EOS 5D coming this might just change.
The bottom line is that it all adds up and the spine can take so much.
Last Friday I was asked a pretty simple question: “Which wide angle lens should I buy? It is a lot of money and I want to make the right choice.” (paraphrased) There are no easy answer to such a question, it’s all subjective.
First of all, most modern DSLR kits come with a relative wide lens, a 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 that often comes with stabilisation. 18mm is considered wide, beyond that it becomes super wide to fisheye (ultra wide). Have a look at this article to get a good understanding of the “length” of a lens. In relative term a 50mm will give the photographer about a normal human field of view on a full size sensor, anything wider will be more than a human field of view. For example, some fisheyes go to 180 degrees field of view, with these ultra wide lenses there is a serious problem outside of the bubble and banding effects, if you are not careful your feet will be in the shot, so look down when you use these or you will be shooting your foot!
So coming back to the original question, do you need wider than 18mm, probably not, particularly if you are on a budget. In fact if you are on a budget and you only own a 18-55mm, my opinion would be to get a zoom lens in the 55-300 range. Most manufacturers have relatively good priced, entry level, lenses in that range such as Canon’s 70-300mm, Nikon’s a 55-300mm and SONY’s a 75-300mm also let us not forget Tamron, Sigma and other third party manufacturers. These would allow you to photograph some sports and wildlife amongst other things.
Now if you only have an 18-55mm kit lens, how do you create a wide angle view of a scene? I will cover an “How to create simple panoramic photographs” from shooting it to composing it in my next post.
Tags: Hardware, Panoramics, Techniques
I am not easily impressed by anything nowadays, call me blaze if you will. Through a series of unforeseen, though not unpleasant, events I became the owner of a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM lens today. So, as one does, I mounted it on my camera, a Canon EOS 7D, and shot the first thing that came in sight. I knew off hand that the photo was going to a total fail, no light. I cranked up the ISO to 3200, set the lens to f/4 not expecting much at all, After all, anyone that fires a shutter at 1/15 sec at 50mm handheld should be shot for sheer incompetence.
Was I in for a surprise!!! It’s not tack sharp but… I’ll let the photo speak for itself!
I shot this less than 20cm away, I even got a nice low depth of field! The IS is impressive!
Here is a crop of the cover, it’s not 1 to 1 but you’ll get the idea.
Even my finger print is visible!
I was in for another surprise, here is the same image processed with Lightroom 4 (noise reduction at 100% only)
I’ll do some more testing but I have the feeling this is going to be my go to lens when I get my new camera.
There are very few things that leave me in wander, African sunsets are one of these rare occasions where I often forget to pickup my camera and just enjoy the moment. There is something dramatic about African sunsets before or after a storm I cannot explain, it just is what it is.
This photo was shot in the Kimberley in 2007.
A stormy evening in Kimberley by Pascal Parent
Camera: CANON EOS 300D
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-55mm
2 photo panoramic
Tags: Panoramics, Photo of the day, Travel
