My Travels

I recently spent a little bit of time exploring Europe. Sadly most of the time I was enjoying myself so much that taking good photographs were the least of my worries, which I now regret!

Looking back I also wish I had taken a DSLR despite the size. I had bought a Panasonic Lumix Tz-6 as a point and shoot substitute and it wasn't half bad. I am finally getting round to posting a few of the pics I took while abroad!

This particular photo is a view of the Louvre in Paris. I liked the effect on the people in the foreground and their colouration through PP even though it did mess up and smudge some of the edges of the archway. I felt it was a worthy sacrifice though that I may fix at some point (when I learn how).

'High Dynamic Range' Photography

Hi there,

Hope all you regular readers (me and jim) are enjoying the new look of the blog, it will be evolving over time this is just the very very basic look of it just now while we sorted out the sizing to make images look a lot nicer!

Anyway back to my post! Ever since happening upon a photo blog that goes by the name Stuck in Customs I have been fixated on HDR photography. I have tried it before but without much success! It was just luck if it came out decent after running it though the HDR software. But after heading over to Stuck in Customs and checking out Trey's excellent tutorial he has written I have increased the odds of getting a keeper!

Basically the process is you take 3 photos (my D90 only supports 3) that are all exposed differently. It usually goes like this... under exposed 1-stop ---> correct exposure ----> over exposed 1-stop.

This can be changed to +-2 stops depending on the contrast of the light.

These are then merged together in special HDR software and after playing with some sliders and merging and masking in photoshop (read the Stuck in Customs Tutorial) you have the finished product!

Here is one of my attemps! Click the title of this post to check out some more!

Self Portrait Challenge

I challenged Craig to come up with a self portrait and that I would do the same. It seemed like a good idea to challenge each other as we have never really done self portraits, especially not ones we'd consider showcasing on the blog!

Sadly Craig so far has not produced a single result! I am hoping that he is just working so hard that the final photo will be amazing - watch this space!!

Anyway, here is my attempt!