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First Racer of the Day

Posted on by Nick Roberts

The early morning runs on the Salt Flats are something I will always remember. You can hear the engine screaming at redline long before you can see the motorcycle come into view. For me this image captures some of the majestic beauty of the Salt Flats and the daredevil who is willing to try to go faster than anyone in this class ever has.

Land Speed Racing is a solitary sport because once the flag is dropped it is rider and machine against the time clock. It takes a special man or woman to attempt it on two wheels. At Bonneville gender doesn’t matter, it’s all about skill and courage; there are many world land speed records that are held by women as well as men.  I don’t know who was riding this bike that morning but I do know that they were having the thrill of a lifetime as they rocketed by at well over 100 miles an hour.

Sunrise at Bonneville

Posted on by Nick Roberts

Image

Sunrise at the Bonneville Salt Flats is almost always spectacular. On the morning I shot this it had rained heavily the night before. I couldn’t believe how beautiful the morning sky reflecting on the water was. When it rains on the Salt Flats there is no place for the rain to run off so it must soak into the salt. On this particular day it was nearly noon before the water had soaked in enough for us to go out to the race course.

I processed this image in Topaz Adjust which allowed me to intensify the already magnificent colors. I try to use whatever plug-in I feel will give the most impact to my images and even though I’m a big fan of the NIK line of plug-ins I still use Topaz for some of my single frame HDR style images.

Yum Center Louisville, KY

Posted on by Nick Roberts

This shot is a true HDR image merged from 5 separate exposures. I use the EV (exposure value) control to change my exposures. I find that these late sunset images work really well when I expose at +2, +1, 0, -1, -2 EV. Doing this gets detail into the shadow areas via the overexposed frames and prevents blowing out the highlights by underexposing the two minus (-) EV frames while the 0 exposure gives good mid-tone information. I took these images straight from Aperture 3 into NIK HDR Efex Pro to tone map the image then returned the tone mapped image to Aperture 3 where I cleaned up the sensor dust spots, boy do I hate dust spots, and gave it some sharpening to wrap it up.

I shot this from the Clark Memorial Bridge with my Nikon D90 set at 200 ISO and f11 using my Nikkor 12-24 mm wide angle lens. Another thing to keep in mind is to always use a tripod and cable release when shooting multiple images for HDR processing.

I was trying to balance the building with the sky to create a balanced image that would give a sense of depth to the scene. I also chose to include a small amount of the bridge railing in the frame to add some foreground interest and added texture to the composition.

Hello world!

Posted on by Nick Roberts

I want to welcome you to Speed Demon 2 a site where I hope to inspire and delight my readers with my vision of the world in HDR photographs and HDR processing. I have been kicking this idea around for too long so as of today I am sticking my neck out and going for it.

Each day I will try to add another HDR image and write a little bit about why and how I chose the composition and the final HDR processing that went into creating it. I use Aperture 3, Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 as well as plugins from OnOne Software , NIK software, and Topaz software.

The header is an image I took at BUB International Motorcycle Speed Trials early in the morning just before racing began. I stitched the panorama together from three images in Photoshop CS5 before taking it into Topaz Adjust where I tone mapped it and gave it some of my signature vision. I use HDR to increase the vibrancy of my images and am inclined to present the image as I see it in my mind’s eye rather than aiming for exact reproduction of the scene.