ProjectVISUAL » Photomatix

The Long And Winding Road

Stephen — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:42:31 +0000

This scene is from a single RAW file. One of the things I do in cases when I create a set of under and overexposed files from one RAW in Photoshop is to first auto adjust the image’s settings using the Auto option in Photoshop. Sometimes however this can lead to uneven colors when it actually comes to the Photomatix part of processing and the HDR photo looks a bit off. I think my last post was a bit like this.

This time though I left the setting as Default in Photoshop, and made three under- and three over-exposed shots instead of the usual two. I’ll probably make this process part of my daily workflow now .

If you’re interested in knowing how I made this, along with my other photos, you can check out my HDR Tutorial

Technorati Tags: wales, britian, snowdon, mountain, climb, hike, trek, holiday, sunny, outdoors, lake, nature, nikon, d300, hdr, tonemapped, projectvisual, high dynamic range, textures, hdr photography, path

Encroaching Clouds

Stephen — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:00:25 +0000

It’s not often you see shadows covering entire mountains, but here’s one example.

If you’re interested in knowing how I made this, along with my other photos, you can check out my HDR Tutorial

HDR Tutorial Part 2 – Hardware & Image Capture

Stephen — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:40:09 +0000

(N.B. This is Part 2 of my HDR Tutorial. Part 1, which is a brief introduction to HDR, can be found here.)

Right, we know now what HDR is and what type of results we can achieve from the whole process. The next step is to actually get outside and take some RAW images! For this you will need:

A camera (essential, DSLR is highly recommended), that can shoot in RAW (preferable but not essential), and can auto bracket (preferable but will be a real pain if it can’t ).
A tripod (preferable; I have one, rarely bring it with me on trips, and always regret not having it.)

My current camera of choice is the Nikon D300 (you can pick up its successor, the D300s at B&H Photo); it’s solid, heavy, fast, and takes great images. It also shoots in RAW, a feature found on all DSLRs. RAW is the uncompressed sensor data that is captured by your DSLR each time you take a picture. If you shoot in JPG then what you are really doing is shooting in RAW and letting your camera compress the data into a JPG before saving. This all happens in the background and requires no input from you, however you are losing valuable image information by setting your camera to shoot in JPG. HDR is still doable with a set of JPGs; it just probably won’t give you the best results.

The D300 also has that single most important feature I mentioned in Part 1: auto-bracketing (AEB). AEB is the ability of a camera to take a metered shot (that’s your initial shot), followed in quick succession by a user defined number of under and over exposed shots (remember my five thumbnail shots in Part 1?). The amount of under or over exposure is measured in exposure values (EVs). I’m sure there are entire books on just exposure. In fact, here’s one! And here’s another! However I’m going to explain it as best I can in just a few lines!

Understanding Exposure Values- A crash course.

EV is a function of your camera’s ISO, shutter speed, and aperture size, and all other things remaining constant (e.g. if you’re in manual mode), will vary like this:

If you increase your ISO, you increase the EV. When shooting for HDR we only use a single ISO value (the lower the better to minimise noise), so we don’t need to worry about this.
Opening your aperture, e.g. from f/11 to f/4 will increase your EV. We also only use one aperture setting, to keep the depth of field constant (I always shoot using aperture priority) so we don’t need to worry about this either. Easy so far!
Shutter speed is where all the action happens . Increasing the shutter speed will reduce the EV. Specifically, if you double your shutter speed, say from 1/15s to 1/30s the EV will decrease by about 1. Conversely, if you half your shutter speed, say from 1/30s to 1/15s the EV will increase by about 1.

Many DSLRs, the D300 included, can be set up to automatically take under and over exposed images at EV values of ±1 and ±2, relative to the initial metered shot. In Part 1 of this tutorial my metered shot was at 1/60s, and my under and overexposed shots were at shutter speeds of 1/15s (+2EV), 1/30s (+1EV), 1/125s (-1EV) and 1/250s (-2EV). As you’ve probably realised by now this is a very, very handy feature to have on your camera if you’re interested in HDR photography; without it you would have to manually change your shutter speed to give you the proper change in EV, something I’m sure I would grow tired of very quickly! When getting any DSLR make sure it has AEB functions.

Anything else?

Yes actually! You really should get a tripod. Keeping your camera steady while it is taking multiple images at different EVs is quite tough without one; I’ve tried it handheld and it just doesn’t really work. Sitting your camera on a wall or table is a workaround but then you are severely limiting the number of directions you can point your lens . On the rare occasion I bother to bring them, I use Hahnel Triad 50 tripod legs with a Manfrotto 322RC2 Joystick Head. The joystick head is a real wonder – it allows almost 360 degree positioning for your camera with nothing more than a squeeze of the grip. A tripod is well worth investing in if your serious about tack sharp images, there are plenty to choose from over at the B&H Photo website. The Manfrotto joystick head is also in stock .

I know now what I need, what do I shoot?

I don’t know! Whatever you want! Anything can be HDRed, the trick is knowing what can be HDRed well. Personally I love landscape shots with cloudy skies, shiny vehicles are great too, oh shots when the sun is prominent can be wonderful too, but they’re a bit tricky. The best thing to do is just get out and experiment. The one thing you want to keep in mind is you’re looking for a scene that cannot be captured by a single exposure; they’ll benefit most from the HDR treatment. Some examples are a dark room with a bright window, landscapes with a glaring sun, you get the idea…

To aid this tutorial I went out, set up my tripod, fastened my D300 securely to it, set my ISO to 200, aperture priority at f/9, and AEB to take a metered shot and four others at ±2 and ±1EV. The shutter speed of the metered shot was chosen by my camera to be 1/800s. Can you work out the other shutter speeds from this? Remember I don’t have to figure out these other shutter speeds, the camera does that for me, I just tell it the EVs to use. Here are the five images I took, below it is the finished HDR.

In Part 3 we’ll actually talk about turning the five images above into the finished HDR photo. The one essential piece of software you’ll need for this is Photomatix, which can be found at Hdrsoft.com. There are others, but Photomatix is in my opinion the best I’ve tried. If you have it already that’s great, if not you can download a free trial version from the website for either WINDOWS or MAC OSX. Any images made with the trial version will be watermarked however .

Purchase Photomatix at 15% discount with Coupon Code “projectvisual”

If you’re feeling adventurous you can jump straight in and buy Photomatix for either WINDOWS or MAC at a discount of 15% if you use the coupon code “projectvisual”; you’ll see where to enter it if you click either of my oversized links below! Hdrsoft were kind enough to give me this code because I asked them so nicely

A quick recap.

You’ll want a camera with AEB functions. The D300s, with a 16-85mm VR lens has them, but may be a bit expensive at over $2000! For the more budget conscience consumer, the Nikon D5000, with an 18-105mm lens and AEB controls will set you back just a shade over $1000. Of course there are cheaper ones still, browse around B&H Photo.com and see what catches your eye.
Tripod legs and head: anything sturdy will do . Again, I’d recommend the Manfrotto Joystick Head, just because it’s unbelievably convenient.

Some final tips that I’ve learned from the D300:

If you have slow moving subjects in your scene like clouds or leaves perhaps, use a large aperture to increase the speed at which your images are captured. This won’t help when it comes to dynamic scenes such as people moving – but there’s a way around that…
Use continuous auto-focus; if you chose single auto-focus your camera will refocus (possibly on different subjects) between each shot, and we don’t want that now!
Shoot in aperture priority when shooting HDR; pick your own depth of field and leave the shutter speed to the camera.

Part 3 of this tutorial will arrive early in the New Year (it’s here!), in the meantime I’m heading down to south Ireland to ring in the new decade

P.S. If there is some information you feel is lacking / not explained well here please lets me know and I’ll fill in the gaps

Crashing On The Shores Of Xwieni Bay

Stephen — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:37:36 +0000

This is one of the most northern arts of Gozo, 60 miles north lies Sicily. The photograph really doesn’t capture the magnificence of the place unfortunately; I distinctly remember my WOW-meter going off the scale when I was actually there. Just to the left of this scene are the salt pans where seawater is evaporated leaving huge deposits of salts to be later collected. I was more than impressed by the ingenuity of it all!

In other news that probably I only care about, I had planned to go to Kerry this Easter weekend to visit some friends there, only to find that a train ticket there would set me back €78! From Dublin to Kerry is under 300km as the crow flies – it’s actually cheaper to fly there!! I’m sure there would have been plenty of time to get the D300 out for some landscape photos but €78 just proved to much for my wallet

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Gozo, Malta, Rabat

Looking Over Into Rabat

Stephen — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:28:11 +0000

Here’s a rather nice scenic view of Rabat, a town in Gozo that I did not manage to visit. We were on a rather tight schedule with out bus driver – “OK so you have one hour here. Get out, look around but be back in one hour. Then we’ll go to the cliffs, you’ll have 30 minutes there, no more, then we’ll go somewhere else and I’ll rush you about some more!”

Taking a bus around Gozo though was well worth the expense – we had planned to hire out a couple of bicycles and go where we pleased, but from the bus window we soon found out after zooming around un-signed roads and windy cobbled streets that we would have been utterly lost on a pair of bikes!

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Gozo, Malta, Rabat

Waiting For The Ferry That Never Arrived

Stephen — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:30:26 +0000

Upon finishing up our day long bus tour around the dusty roads of Gozo we headed back to the docks to find that our ferry had already left! What followed was over an hour of staring blankedly into the sea, watching a fisherman with the longest rod I’d ever seen until the next ferry finally arrived.

It was a pretty nice view though, the sea sounds being all swishy and calming.

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Gozo, Malta, Ferry, Water, Dock

Obeying The Rules Of The Road

Stephen — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:30:27 +0000

I took this shot quickly while waiting for the traffic to chill out but then felt I should take it again since the little green man wasn’t lit the first time. This was on the first day in Barcelona, and one for the short periods when there wasn’t any rain either – it was raining in Barcelona while it was sunny in Ireland! WHAT!!!!!

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Barcelona, Traffic Lights, Green Man

The Pint That Led To Barcelona

Stephen — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:15:38 +0000

It’s been a couple of days since my last post – that pint I mentioned in my last post got completely out of control and turned into a spontaneous two day trip to Barcelona. I did have just enough time to grab my camera along with my passport but unfortunately the the weather in Barcelona was utterly shit for the two days so there won’t really be many pictures coming from there

So it’s back to busines now anyway, here’s yet another pic from Malta – it was taken at around 06:30, just after sunrise.

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Malta, Sunrise, Ship, Docked, Pint, Barcelona, Water

The Ship That Just Wouldn’t Move

Stephen — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:00:51 +0000

This was without doubt the most impressive ship docked in Valetta Bay in Malta (apart from the Indian Empress: an utterly gigantic luxury ship), but it never seemed to leave the bay! Seems like a waste…

Im at a loss as to why there’s suddenly noise in this picture – there was none in the larger version! I’m off for a pint now so it’ll have to do as it is

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Malta, Valetta, Ship, Bay, Docked

A Trip Back In Time With The Maltese Bus

Stephen — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:45:04 +0000

Apologies for the short post yesterday – I was in a no fun mood and may have annoyed one person in particular, so particularly sorry to her

As it turns out the buses in Malta (some are dated back to the 60′s!) are by tradition owned by the drivers and so explains the high degree of customisation I saw while over there: pictures and statues of Mary adorned most of the buses I travelled on. Also the drivers are nuts – passengers haggle bus fares while standing at the open doors, all the while the driver has already taken off and is bombing down some dusty road at 50kph, amazing that no one gets killed!

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Malta, Bus, Transport

Fungus Rock Bathed In Light

Stephen — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:50:36 +0000

You’ve already seen Fungus Rock in a previous post, but it seems to be some sort of special tourist attraction in Gozo so I thought I’d post it again from another angle!

This was one amazing view – possibly the highlight of the sight seeing part of my trip to Malta. The weather was great, plenty of clouds in the sky, annoying tourists all around me. Actually, scrap that last part, they were really annoying.

Also, a couple of people have asked about prints – I swear I’m getting around to it! It’s just that the printing site I’m using doesn’t seem to be showing good thumbnail / previews of the photos I upload to it – the colours seem washed out a little. I just want to be sure that what I upload is what gets printed

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Gozo, Fungus Rock, Heaven, Light, Clouds

Looking At A Scene From A Different Angle

Stephen — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:00:19 +0000

One of the great things about using a proper tripod and head is that you can quickyly position your camera at almost any angle quickly and easily for those out of the ordinary shots. I use a Manfrotto joystick head with my tripod now and it’s truly the best – a quick squeeze of the handle and my camera swings around any which way I want it. Also, with the joystick head I’ve been taking a lot more portrait like shots.

Camera Settings (1 NEF file – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, Tripod.)

Aperture: f/8
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/1600s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Mdina, calm, Gozo, Mediterranean

Relaxing At Dinner In Mdina

Stephen — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:30:59 +0000

This was one real relaxing day! After wandering around Mdina for an hour or so a friend and I found a cafe on the highest point of the town and relaxed with a pizza while looking over the rest of Gozo. I really wished I could have stayed there longer, but alas we had to move on to other sight

Camera Settings (1 NEF file – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, Camera was propped on the wall.)

Aperture: f/22
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/100s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Mdina, calm, Gozo, Mediterranean

Checking Out The Mediterranean

Stephen — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:00:06 +0000

Velatta Bay is a fortified peninsula on the east coast of Malta – from it’s walls you can see out into the Mediterranean Sea at all angles (eh except when looking at Malta). It was from these docks below that getting from Sliema to Valetta was just a quick skip across the bay.

Camera Settings (5 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, Camera was propped on the wall.)

Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/1600s, 1/800s, 1/400s, 1/200s, 1/100s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Valetta, Bay, dock, boats, ship, summer, hot, Mediterranean

Docked Boats in the Spring Sun

Stephen — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:20:21 +0000

St Patrick’s Day was good.

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/4
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/2000s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Valetta, Bay, Sliema, boats, ship, water, sea

The Sky Watchtower of Valetta

Stephen — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:30:59 +0000

I really should have some sort of St. Patrick’s Day photo today but Malta just isn’t that green…

We walked around too much on our first day in Malta, from our side of the bay Valetta looked liked the obvious place to check out first. This involved walking around our section of the bay and then momentarily getting lost by heading up an off track part of the coast.

I took this shot while wondering whether to keep getting more lost of just head back the way we came – then some old guy with minimal English stopped us and explained ow his dog’s name (Prince) was so amazing. Luckily he didn’t kill us afterwards.

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/2000s

Technorati Tags: projectvisual, Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Valetta, Bay, tower, watchtower

Blazing Sunset Over Valetta Bay In Malta

Stephen — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:15:43 +0000

OK time to start posting some colourful Malta pics! Here’s one from my first day there – it’s taken from one of the corners of Valetta: a fort city and also Malta’s capital. I hadn’t taken my tripod with me on the first day as we didn’t know what we were doing that first evening but the whole place is surrounded by low walls that work just fine as a stand in one.

Did you know that Valetta was on of the first (or even first!) city to be built using a grid pattern to outline its streets?? Oooooooh!

Camera Settings (5 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, Camera was supported on a rock)

Aperture: f/22
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/1000s, 1/500s, 1/250s, 1/125s, 1/60s,

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Malta, Valetta, Bay, Sunset, Blazing, Piercing, yellow, rock, water

The Grand Chandelier Of Notre Dame

Stephen — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:35:27 +0000

I got back from Malta yesterday after sitting on a plane for four hours next to a perspirant-efficient and circumferentially-challenged individual, but the trip away was fantastic – lots of homoerotic bonding with a certain flatmate.

Oogles of photos to sift through but for today I found this shot of inside Notre Dame that I rather liked – I’ve begun using Photoshop now rather than GIMP as I’m finding Photoshop more intuitive with it’s many many features.

Camera Settings (1 NEF files – Nikon D300 Body, Nikkor 18-200mm VR Lens, No Tripod)

Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 200
Lens: 18-200@18mm
Shutter Speed: 1/3s

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, Tone Mapped, HDR, Notre Dame, Chandelier, Lights, Shadows, Paris, Church, Cathedral

Stephen’s Green Fountain

Stephen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:00:45 +0000

Another shot from Stephen’s Green – one from the top of the Arc de Triomphe is coming tomorrow I prommise…

On the timelapse photograpgy front I’ve now got about 1 minute 40 seconds done, and I’m wondering what type of muisc would go well with the video. I’m thinking I might make a few versions of the video, each with a different soundtrack to see which appeals to who.

Technorati Tags: Nikon, D300, HDR, Photography, projectvisual, fountain, water, sprinkle, stephens green, park, grass

How To Hide A Lake With A Rock

Stephen — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:04:08 +0000

I find this image very soothing – I was walking over the rock bridge (part of it is the foreground) in Stephen’s Green, and the frame that the bridge and trees make around the lake made this shot irresistible to take. I’ve used a low aperture number, F/3.5 I think, to reduce the depth of focus as much as possible and give it a sort of fairy tale look. I hope you like it.