Monthly Archives: June 2009

HDR for Local Builder

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HDR Great Room Pano - D700, 14-24 @ 14

HDR Great Room Pano - D700, 14-24 @ 14

A local builder, that did some work on our house a few years ago, asked me to take some photos of a job he was doing to use on his web site and to put on his work truck. I did some test shots one day and went back this week to shoot the photos. This is a 7 shot pano using a Really Right Stuff pano head. I shot 7 exposures at 1 stop EV, created the HDR images in Photomatix Pro and then stitched the pano using Panoramic Factory. There is some distortion due to the 14mm lens but it was the only way to get all the room in the shot to show the ceiling. He was pretty happy with the image, I think it works pretty well too…

Tennis Anyone? – Wednesday Doubles

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Wednesday Doubles - D200 IR converted

Wednesday Doubles - D200 IR converted

Country Tennis - D200 IR converted

Club Fed Tennis - D200 IR converted

Playing around with infrared again. After playing some tennis Wednesday afternoon with the regular group of players I got my IR D200 out and snapped a few shots. I liked the juxtaposition of the players on the court and the trees on the hill in background. You can even see the ball that Jack is about to crush for a winner! In the second shot I liked the contrast of the fence against the trees on the hill. Almost like some kind of “Club Fed” institution where we sent these guys for punishment…required to play 3 sets a day every day.

Hungry Robin

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Hungry Robin - D700, Lensbaby Composer

Hungry Robin - D700, Lensbaby Composer

We were pruning the lilacs last week and noticed a robin’s nest in one of the bushes so we didn’t trim that one back. Went out last evening to see what’s going on and if we could NOW trim the lilac. Of course I took a camera along just in case there was some action. As you can see we’re not quite ready to take flight…and we are hungry too. I snapped two quick photos and let the little guy go back to waiting for his next meal.

Botanical Illustrations

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Evening Primrose - D700, 24-70 f/2.8 @ f16

Evening Primrose - D700, 24-70 f/2.8 @ f16

I was reading an article on Niall Benvie’s blog the other day on shooting studio flower images in the field. So I thought I’d give it a try. Got this specimen, Oenothera fruticosa (sundrops, narrow leaf evening primrose) from our garden. This was shot in the studio using his field studio setup. Basically using a translucent background and shooting one flash through it. Another flash was used for the front lighting shot through another translucent reflector. Balancing the light and flash to reflector distance are the main problems. Once you get the setup worked out it should be fairly easy to reproduce in the field. Give it a try…I had a good time with it and will certainly give it a shot in the field.

Here is a link to the article on Niall’s blog:
http://niallbenvie.churchilljohnson.co.uk/blog/?page_id=1197

Sheep in Sepia

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Sheep in Sepia - IR, converted D200

Sheep in Sepia - IR, converted D200

Stopped by one of the local farms on my way home the other day to snap a few photos of the sheep. I’ve been working on a IR technique of shooting with a soft focus filter at a small f-stop to spread the highlights and compress the tonal range. The combination of this shooting set up and post processing can yield some interesting effects. I’m still working on it but am starting to get a pretty good handle on where and how to use it…