Tag: nature

Silent Sunday

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Into the Mist
Into the Mist

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Memo From the Department of Shameless Self Promotion

I am still accepting participants for my next HDR Workshop on May 17-18, 2013 here in Louisville. The last session was a great success; the participants all felt that it was time well spent and were applying the things they learned the next day. Here’s a link to the sign up page at Outdoor Photo Gear.

http://outdoorphotogear.ticketleap.com/using-hdr-photography/

 

 

Miles Lake Morning / Using Reflections to Add Interest

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Miles Lake Morning #1
Miles Lake Morning #1

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When I went out to the Parklands the other morning I was hoping to get a dramatic sunrise but the eastern sky was empty. I decided to hike along the southern shore of Miles Lake to see if there might be something else in there to photograph. About half way to the end of the lake I looked behind me and saw that there was a weather front moving in from the west. I noticed that the clouds were creating an interesting reflection in the placid surface of the lake so I set up my tripod and shot a three frame bracket at -2, 0, and +2 EV.

Back home in my studio I opened the three images in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I merged them and since the morning had been calm I only applied 20% anti-ghosting to the merged files. Once they were merged I applied the Deep #1 preset and made some adjustments to the contrast, white, blacks, shadows and highlights sliders. I then returned the image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the recovery and vibrance sliders very slightly before sharpening and saving the image.

Beckley Creek Panorama

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Beckley Creek Morning
Beckley Creek Morning

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This is another 3 exposure HDR image processed in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Aperture 3. I used the Balanced preset in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 after merging the three exposures with a 20% anti-ghosting setting. My goal was to recreate the scene in as realistic a way as I could while still exploiting the increased tonal range that HDR provides.

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Memo From the Department of Shameless Self Promotion

I am still accepting participants for my next HDR Workshop on May 17-18, 2013 here in Louisville. The last session was a great success; the participants all felt that it was time well spent and were applying the things they learned the next day. Here’s a link to the sign up page at Outdoor Photo Gear.

http://outdoorphotogear.ticketleap.com/using-hdr-photography/

 

Waterfront Park Spring Sunrise

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Waterfront Park Spring
Waterfront Park Spring Sunrise #1

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This is a three frame bracket set HDR image processed in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 with 60% anti-ghosting applied. It was very breezy when I shot the bracket set but the anti-ghosting did a respectable job of merging the three exposures. As is my usual work flow I finished the image in Aperture 3.

Spring Sunrise

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Spring Sunrise
Spring Sunrise

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This is from a shoot I went on with a friend last week to the new Parklands park that is being created along Floyd’s Fork in eastern Louisville. We were there very early and I wanted to experiment with boosting the ISO and shooting in very dark conditions.

This image is from a three exposure bracket set taken well before sunrise. NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 did a good job of bringing out the colors and detail in the scene which was very heavily under exposed in the shadows. There is some noise in the deep shadows but all in all I’m pretty satisfied with the overall result. This park will take some getting used to and I hope that after a few trips out there I’ll have a better handle on what settings I’ll need to use to eliminate a lot of the noise in camera.