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This image is from the Parklands shoot I did earlier this week. It is a HDR image from three exposures -2, 0, and +2 EV that were merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 using the balanced preset with some adjustments applied. I then returned it to Aperture 3 where it was given the final adjustments to color, vibrancy and sharpening.
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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.
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I think one of my favorite parts of Louisville Waterfront Park is the Swing Garden. I like the peaceful feeling that it instills in me as I gently swing and watch the river or listen to the sounds of the city humming in the air. I especially like to be there in the morning when there aren’t many other people using it. The geometric design of the plantings and the landscape elements as well as the man made structures take on so many different aspects as the sun rises and shadows play across the garden.
As usual I shot a three frame bracket which I merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and finished in Aperture 3. I used the Deep 1 preset which I dialed back slightly in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 before making some vibrance, contrast and sharpening adjustments in Aperture 3.
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This is another three exposure bracket set merged in HDR Efex Pro 2 using the Deep #1 preset. After merging the images I returned the image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the Contrast, Exposure, Vibrance and finally Sharpened the image.
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Sunday evening I was down in Waterfront Park to shoot the sunset and the people out enjoying the park. As I was heading back to my truck I saw the children’s playground was getting a little attention too. It was well after sunset and the light was very low so I thought I would experiment with some long exposure brackets of the kids playing on the merry-go-round. They were all ages from toddler up to five or so and they were having a great time. I knew that the figures would be blurred by movement so I decided to capitalize on that.
One mother, whose two children were the smallest on the ride, stood nearly motionless as she watched over them. I hoped that she would show up in the shots and was well rewarded. Even though there were eight or ten kids on the ride and several more parents in the scene they all stayed in motion and appear as faint ghosts in the final image.
I merged the three frames in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 using a 100% setting for anti-ghosting. I also applied the Deep #1 preset and made some very slight adjustments to the tonality before returning the image to Aperture 3 for final adjustments. In Aperture 3 I adjusted each color channel separately in order to compliment the blue tone that the twilight sky cast over the scene. I was still bothered by the way the kids were being rendered as simply a blur though; I decided to add some mid-contrast and voila their small figures appeared inside the merry-go-round. A little sharpening and some further tweaks to the Exposure and Enhance sliders and this final image emerged.
