Tag: exposure value

Final Assembly of the Pier Reinforcement Structure

Ironworkers on barge
Ironworkers on their construction barge put the final touches on the pier reinforcement structure.

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This image shows the pier reinforcement structure that will be taken out to the drilling platform in the background and installed inside a steel caisson  that has been drilled thirty feet into the bedrock under the river. The men are making their final assembly before rigging it to be lifted and inserted into the caisson the next day.

Once again I worked with a single frame from my bracket set in Aperture 3. I created a preset that I can apply to most of my shots from this day which will greatly speed up my processing for the entire shoot. Once I have my basic settings adjusted to suit my vision for the photo I create a preset that I can then apply to other images from the shoot and then adjust to fine tune a particular image.

Ironworkers Assembling an Iron Caisson

Ironworkers Assembling an Iron Caisson for a Bridge Pier on the Ohio River Bridges Project in Louisville Kentucky
Ironworkers Assembling an Iron Caisson for a Bridge Pier on the Ohio River Bridges Project in Louisville Kentucky.

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Ironworkers known as “Rod Busters” are seen here assembling a steel rebar caisson for the Ohio River Bridges Project in Louisville Kentucky. There is also a completed caisson in the background on the work barge. These caissons will be inserted into the steel cylinders that are in the right hand side of the image when those cylinders are placed in the river to build the piers for the new bridge. It was early in the morning and a fog bank was coming in from the east which diffused the light and lent an ethereal quality to the morning sunlight.

 

Silhouette

Cedric's Shadow
Cedric’s Shadow

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I shot this image yesterday morning just after sunrise. I especially liked the way the hook and the crane operator, Cedric, were silhouetted on the rusty steel retaining wall. The morning light was simply gorgeous and I have several other images that really reveal the wonderful colors. While processing them I decided to see what one would look like in Black and White. I wanted to create an image that felt like it might have been taken at the turn of the twentieth century.

I used the normal exposure value of 0 EV which rendered the scene very well. I first processed this image in Topaz Adjust as a faux HDR image which allowed me to emphasize the colors and texture. I then took the resulting version into OnOne Perfect B&W where I applied the Ambrotype preset. I also added a border within OnOne Perfect B&W using the Emulsion 003 setting with a wide border size. I didn’t need to do anything else, except to add a little sharpening, when I returned the image to Aperture 3.

Avoid Cliches

Chevrolet
Chevrolet

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cliché or cliche (UK /ˈklʃ/ or US /klɪˈʃ/) is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, or effect, and even, to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.[1] (source Wikipedia)

Too often we photographers fall into the trap of shooting the same type of images that we have seen for years. With automobiles and car shows we will often shoot the entire car or some detail like a hood ornament, etc. I suggest you try moving beyond those cliched shots and approach the subject with an abstract approach that still speaks to the essence of the subject but isn’t so obvious.

In this image I fell in love with the bright yellow paint and the complimentary red and blue accents. I chose to use them as leading lines that reinforced the diagonal pattern of the clouds above the car. The blue sky is a direct compliment to the yellow color and also picks up on the blue pinstripes on the red louvers as it also provides background interest to the composition . While there is no question that the subject is an automobile the overall effect is to emphasize color and composition instead of being just another photo of a car.

I used my regular HDR brackets +2, 0 and -2 EV and processing with NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 which allowed me to capture and emphasize things such as the texture in the clouds and the reflections in the the door. I finished the image in Aperture 3 using some minor adjustments to the blue and yellow color channels, cropping and sharpening.

More Handheld HDR

Supercharger #1
Supercharger #1

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Yesterday I talked about shooting HDR brackets handheld; today’s image is another example of that technique. There are many occasions or situations where a tripod is out of the question. Often those same situations present difficulties due to the extremely broad dynamic range of the subject; that is when a bracket set can assure that the entire dynamic range is covered.

In this image the light on the polished metal was extreme and a single exposure would have left the sky overexposed while the shadows would have been underexposed. By shooting a three frame bracket at +2, 0 and -2 EV I was able to capture the clouds in the sky, the details under the carburetors, the reflected light on the black drive belt in the lower right of the frame and the reflections in the windshield. By combining the three exposures in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 I was able to bring the broad dynamic range under control.

One of the features of NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 that really helps with handheld images is the Align Images feature that can be applied at the initial merging of the brackets before any other processing takes place. I keep this feature checked for all my HDR work because even on a tripod there can be slight movement between frames; of course when shooting handheld there is bound to be some movement and this feature along with a 20% Ghost Reduction application usually solves that issue.

Finally I used the Balanced preset in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 as my starting point to tone map the image. A little tweaking there opened up the shadows and tamed the highlights while bringing the clouds out in the sky. I then returned the image to Aperture 3 for final adjustments to exposure and some enhancement of the red and yellow color channels to saturate the brown on the car. A little adjustment to the blue channel saturation and luminance further strengthened the contrast between the clouds and sky. Lastly I sharpened the image and then took it into Photoshop CS5 and used Content Aware fill to remove a small patch of white at the edge of the photo that was there from the corner of the event sticker in the windshield.