First Go at HDR Photography
Have you ever taken a picture, and then when showing someone the picture you’ve taken, you sigh with dissapointment, “Well, you just had to be there. The picture doesn’t do it justice.”
I’ve gone through that…a lot.
I still have a lot to learn about photography, but I’ve wished I could get my pictures to turn out better.
There’s a technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography, and I finally was able to give it a go this holiday season.
Here are some shots I took:
A Cool Winter’s Day
Nestled in the Mountains
Cabins in the Distance
Red Sky Delight (or Pink)
First Go at HDR
When you’re watching a sunset, your senses take in the beauty of the scene.
The problem when taking a picture of the scene is that the photograph doesn’t record like your mind records a scene.
The camera doesn’t record what you see because your eyes and brain interpret the light differently than the camera’s sensor.
For example, here’s what the Red Sky photo looked like without HDR
You can see how the camera doesn’t interpret the light from the trees and ground very well, but standing there, you could see them and the sunset just fine.
It was a beautiful moment on what was becoming a chilly winter evening as the sun set.
Here’s the HDR version again:
HDR helps capture the essence and feeling of the scene.
You adjust your camera’s settings to take different exposures of the same scene.
Underexposed, which captures the majesty of the sky for example, and then increasing the exposure on the camera with each picture.
Low exposure:
Lighter:
Lighter-er:
Pretty exposed there:
Unfortunately, when I was taking the pictures, the clouds were moving super fast. They just would hold still for me!
So you take the various exposures and put them in a program called Photomatix that combines the images for you. It’s pretty slick.
Final Result:
If your camera can autobracket, you can take the different exposure levels automatically. My current camera can’t do that, so I have to manually adjust after each picture (which can move the camera, creating blur).
My pictures above are my first go at HDR and aren’t the best examples, but below are some awesome examples courtesy of StuckinCustoms.com:
First HDR to Hang in the Smithsonian by Trey Ratcliff – Stuckincustoms.com
Disneyworld HDR Photo by Trey Ratcliff – Stuckincustoms.com
Taj Mahal HDR by Trey Ratcliff – Stuckincustoms.com
Trey’s photographs are outstanding (used under Creative Commons License).
He has some awesome tutorials on his site.
Since taking my pictures, I’ve watched a lot of his tutorials, so my next pictures should be even better (hopefully).
Read MoreThe other Millennium Falcon
We were looking out our window and saw what we think is a type of falcon, probably millennium 
on top of our neighbor’s shed.
The falcon had a kill, a bird, and was perched upon the heat release vent, and it began to slowly spin as the falcon tore up tufts of flesh and feathers went flying. The falcon was very alert and aware of its surroundings (except for the fact that it was rotating perfectly for us to have a 360 degree view.
We were surprised that morning to get a lot of snow.
Earlier in the year, we saw a falcon in an air chase after a little sparrow. Those two birds were really zig-zagging all over the sky and through the trees right in our front yard.
Read MoreNikon D60 Fix in a Flash
We had the unfortunate occurrence of having the flash on our Nikon D60 camera break and the cost to fix it was about the price of getting a new flash that could attach to the top of the camera.
The external flash would be cool, but as the only flash, it would be a little cumbersome to hook on the external flash every time we needed to take a quick picture with the flash.
We came across a video from Northern Lights that shows what the problem was and how to fix it. The fix took just a few minutes once we had the right precision screwdriver, and viola! we saved ourselves hundreds of dollars in repair costs and time without a camera.
The Internet is awesome! Just a little bit of searching, and we had our answer.
Now that it’s fixed, ironically…we want an external flash
Since we fixed our camera, we’ve had the bug to get a flash for our camera. The advantage of an attachable or external flash is that you don’t get the harsh shadows on people’s faces or behind them on the wall when taking pictures inside.
The attachable flash points away from your subjects and bounces the flash off the ceiling (if inside).
There are lots of different price ranges for flashes out there. We’re partial to the less expensive SB-400 model made by Nikon so you know it will work with all digital Nikon SLRs cameras.
Here’s a video showing how the SB-400 can tilt because from the pictures, it looks like it can’t. But in realitiy, it is more compact making the camera lighter to hold compared to the big flashes, and it works just fine angeling the flash.
This is the flash we want to get someday (Birthday or Christmas, come soon!) for the following reasons:
- Smaller and more light than other flashes making the camera easier to hold
- Smaller also means I’ll be more likely to take it around with me in the camera bag and use it more often
- It’s not complicated so it’s very easy to use (other flashes are over-complicated)
- It’s made by Nikon for Nikon cameras so I know it’ll work
The flash can be found on Amazon, and it has over 257 reviews (most of them the highest rating of 5 stars).
You can read the reviews and see some example pictures here:
Nikon SB-400 AF Speedlight Flash for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras
By the Light of the Silvery…
A full moon was shining outside, and we decided to test out our Nikon D60 Camera. We wondered how good of a shot we could get of the moon.
If you’ve ever tried to take a picture of a beautiful evening sky with a full moon, the moon usually ends up being a very bright hot spot in the middle of your picture and is no bigger than a pinhead.
We zoomed in with our Nikon camera and the moon was just a very bright spot; you couldn’t make out any details. We then speed up the shutter speed which lets in less light. To give you an idea, we tried an extremely fast shutter speed picture inside the house before going out (a second time) to get that shot of the moon. The high shutter speed inside the house gave a pitch black result. Wow. Outside we used a shutter speed of 1/200s which sound really technical, but we just turned the selector wheel until we had a good picture.
We cropped out the rest of the sky (which was just black) and ended up with a shot detailing the “seas” and craters on the moon.
