Fun Weekend

[Wil_Bloodworth]

I hope you all had a great weekend! Julie let me off my chain for a few hours on Saturday so I went out to play with the new 24mm PC-E (tilt/shift) lens that I (finally) received.

Here are a few fun shots from yesterday. They're "over the top" on purpose.











- Wil

[Stricks]

Nice perspectives and crazy colors...but there's something appealing about that. Great shots in my opinion.

[houtex01]

Wil..looks like you enjoyed playing with your new lense...nice series...like the color effects of the last one...

Ron

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Oh, here's an HDR tip... if your scene involves clouds, use the high-speed bracketing instead of bracketing one shot at a time manually... otherwise, your clouds will be way apart like in the first 3 of these images. If you're going for that effect... great. If not, go high-speed.

Thanks Ron and Robert! After the first half-hour of frustration, I started having fun. The new PC-E lens is amazing. I can totally see myself owning the other two Nikons... and it would be great if they would release at 17mm... just like the Canon.

- Wil

[heathercaptures]

I love them! I lived in Frisco for 10yrs pre divorce so I watched a lot of these buildings grow, enjoyed seeing them in a different way :)

[Texasdave]

Wil;
Very nice work. All I can say about the lens is wow both about what it does and price !!! Are you knocking off banks on the side or something ??? I am jealous LOL ...I really like what you have shown here.

[dmcantrell]

Neat work. About the clouds and HDR -- can you elaborate on "high speed bracketing"? is this a setting?

[gatewayphoto]

Nice series Wil, my favorite is 3 what if you say "align using back round" would that help?

[Wil_Bloodworth]

TexasDave: Nah, just my Commercial business has really taken off... which I didn't expect. That has really paid for all me new gear in the last couple of months. I'm satiated at the moment... although I would really like the 60mm F4 prime from Coastal Optics... but it's $4500 so I may have to wait on that. Oh, and the other two PC-E lenses will probably eventually find their way to me. Not sure about the 85mm though. I may just get the new 85mm AF-S when it comes out. I don't know if I would have a full-time need for an 85mm T/S lens... Jeff Kohn says he uses his 45mm the most so that's probably the next one on the list for me. Jeff is my "EF Hutton"... if you're old enough to remember that reference.

Tom: I'm not sure but I think the HDR software screws up the building alignment if it tries to align with the background. I had to manually align those frames because it just couldn't figure it out. I use three different HDR programs... because sometimes one just does a much better job on a certain image than the others. I'm still not a fan of Photomatix even though it seems to be the most popular... kinda like Windows. ha ha.

David (Cantrell): When I say "high speed bracketing", I mean putting the camera on the "Ch" or Continuous High-speed mode and then turning bracketing on. You do that last part by holding down the Function button on the front of the camera below the DOF preview button... and then spinning the rear command dial to choose your bracketing choice. Currently, I'm using a 5-image bracket with from -2 to +2. That seems to be working out for me right now. I haven't seen a need for a 7 or 9 stop bracket yet but I have tried shooting in some extreme-contrast settings where that might be necessary.

- Wil

[JohnT]

You saved the best for last. Nicely done!

[Joe_Lorenzini]

Wow!, those are eye-popping! I do enjoy the HDR feel to it and you've gone and done the saturations gods proud! But seriously love that T/S lens. I have no doubt the 24 will make it's way back into my bag this year...

Great stuff Wil.

Joe

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by ParkImaging

David (Cantrell): When I say "high speed bracketing", I mean putting the camera on the "Ch" or Continuous High-speed mode and then turning bracketing on. You do that last part by holding down the Function button on the front of the camera below the DOF preview button... and then spinning the rear command dial to choose your bracketing choice. Currently, I'm using a 5-image bracket with from -2 to +2. That seems to be working out for me right now. I haven't seen a need for a 7 or 9 stop bracket yet but I have tried shooting in some extreme-contrast settings where that might be necessary.

Oh okay, this is what I thought you meant but I wasn't sure. Did you use Photomatix to make these HDR images? I thought there was a couple of choices for alignment to help correct for moving clouds. It's always tough to overcome though.

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Joe: Thank you sir!

David: I used Ariea's HDR Max for these images. I started using Dynamic-Photo HDR but the quality wasn't very good for some reason and the clouds were coming out "dirty looking". So, I went with HDR Max which will use RAW images and allow you to do all of the tone mapping without having to convert to another format... meaning it will allow you to do everything with the RAW image files. Once you've done everything and got it the way you want, you can export to a 16-bit TIFF... which is what I've done. I've had no real positive experiences with Photomatix... yet. EasyHDR was pretty nice but had sporadic results as well.

- Wil

[jcopes]

Will--how does that compare to Photomatix? I am looking for a different program, just haven't found anyone that I know that uses anything other than Photomatix.

I like the third set of clouds. I know in photomatix, you can adjust for cloud movements so that they don't apprear creeping.

You do awesome work! I love the last one. The colors pop! Thanks so much for sharing.

Jen

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Jen:

I like Dynamic HDR (thanks Joe) and HDR Max just about equally. I like the fact that HDR Max does not make you create a new image before Tone Mapping... which, IMO, gives you more control (just like shooting RAW). However, on some images, I've gotten more pleasing results using Dynamic HDR. I bought them both and when I start creating a new HDR, I start with Dynamic HDR until I don't think I'm getting what I really want... then I switch to HDR Max.

Of course, I've only beeing *doing* HDR with software for a few weeks now so I'm still completely ignorant when it comes to most of the settings. I need to pick up a book (or five) and read up.

I could've fixed the cloud alignment but after seeing how it really created a dramatic image with movement isolated to certain areas of the image... I kinda liked it. It's like accidentally dropping chocolate into peanut butter. :)

- Wil