Tag: HDR

2012 Deck – Week 11

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography4 Comments

I try not to do single image HDRs, that is, using a single exposure and tone-mapping it for greater detail throughout the scene, but sometimes I can never quite seem to get the processing on an image quite right in colour, and sometimes its an image that I would prefer not to use as a monochrome, so then I tone-map it in an HDR software to bring out that detail that I know is there.

This photo is of the Moravian Church in Queenstown, Guyana.  It is more than a hundred years old.

It stands at the junction of Anira Street and New Garden Street, and there are utility posts and wires on two sides of it, I composed this to minimise the effect of those wires.

Queenstown Moravian Church

Kaieteur

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography5 Comments

The mighty Kaieteur, the largest single drop waterfall (by volume) in the world.  Let’s not get confused, it’s NOT the tallest single drop waterfall in the world, but when you’re comparing the sheer volume of water flowing over it, it is the largest single drop waterfall in the world, make note of that distinction.  It has a single drop of 226 meters (741 feet), and averages about 663 cubic meters of water per second (23,400 cubic feet per second).  It is awesome!

For you Canadians and Americans, it’s about five times the height of Niagara,

You can read more about the falls and its history on other sites, I’m not about to go regurgitating all that data here 🙂

For years I’ve always avoided flying into Kaieteur because I could always say that my money would be better spent (in terms of distance and longevity) in going to one of the Caribbean Islands, it was cheaper to go to Trinidad (and stay for a week or two) than to go to Kaieteur and spend two hours.

My first visit to Kaieteur was in 2009, and if I could give up my day-job and become a guide for a tour company just so I could see Kaieteur every week, I’d do it, but then again, I like my job  🙂

This photo was resurrected from my files recently, I had taken three exposures for an HDR, and I decided to re-process those files and see what happens.  It won’t be great (especially to enlarge it), it was taken with the Canon PowerShot S5 IS bridge camera with a Raynox 0.66x wide angle adapter attached,  You can probably see some of the lens distortion at the edges.

This is my favourite view of Kaieteur (other than the views from the airplane, of course)  This is known as Johnson’s View, it’s the furthest view from the falls and gives a beautiful view on the vista.

Definitely, click on the image here to see it better in the gallery.

Into the Halls of Power

On By themichaellamcollectionIn Photography7 Comments

I was doing some re-arranging of my website-recently (background stuff that no-one would notice) and came across a folder I had created to temporarily put images, before I made them public, I did not use it extensively and actually forgot it was there, there were two images in it, I decided to make at least one of them public, the other one I am still not happy with.

I was fortunate to be one of four people in a group that was allowed into the Parliament Buildings to do some photography last year.  I have actually processed very few of those images, one in particular I took time to use a tripod, and do multiple exposures for a HDR image, this is the one that I am sharing today.

Although I used a tripod, I only used three exposures but I think it came out nicely.

I hope you like it.

As always, please click on the image for a much better view in the Gallery.

2012 Deck – Week 8

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography10 Comments

Although Mashramani fell in the eight week of the year, I did not necessarily want to use a photograph from that event, fortunately I had gone on a walk with Nikhil around St George’s Cathedral and I had tried out an HDR, although it has some issues, I rather liked the outcome.

I was a mere four feet from the door, but other than standing in mid-air to get the shot, this was my only option.  Although I did some correcting to the distortion caused by the Sigma 10-20mm lens (and the close proximity to the subject), I still got some distortion that I couldn’t get rid of.

My aim with this HDR, was to get the doorway, but also to get as much detail on the inside that I could.  Nikhil wanted to go and adjust the mat, but I thought that the angle that it was at worked fine for me.

Oh, and as usual, I neglected to lug the tripod with me, so this was handheld.

Looking In

2012 Deck – Week 1

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2012 Deck, Photography14 Comments

After two years of doing this, I think that this is what keeps me intrigued in photography, the weekly search for a photograph.  While Nikhil has embarked upon his Daily Photography project this year (I hope he goes the full 366) I know my limitations, I won’t be trying that anytime soon.

I think that this image is somewhat appropriate to the year, the crazy Armageddon stories and to my photography.  If you believe the Mayan Calendar theorists and many of the other Doomsday predictions regarding the year 2012, then you’re probably hoping, like myself, that I get some really good photographs this year! 🙂

This was taken on New Year’s Day, because of my interests in HDR, I thought that I would try another Black and White HDR, this one was taken at midday, I think the originals were 2ev apart.

It was a breezy day (forgot my tripod again, so this was hand-held for all three exposures), and very overcast, lots of clouds as you can see.

2012

2011 Deck – Week 51

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography4 Comments

I had shortlisted four images for this blog-post, two of them were too much in keeping with the general theme of the last few weeks, so I discarded those (for later publication) and one was somehow reminiscent of photos I’ve seen from Nikhil and some other local photogs, so I ended up with this one.

I titled it “Ritual at Dawn” because I had inadvertently caught some people in the frame, I think they may have been Hindus out to perform a seaside ritual (I think I should enquire more about this)

I was a bit dissatisfied with the original capture, but was taken enough by the scene to try to “salvage” the image.  I tried a single image HDR tone-mapping, but that didn’t work out as I expected.  I then decided to go for a pseudo-HDR, since I hadn’t actually taken multiple exposures, I created the multiple exposures in Lightroom (using a 1.5ev on the original image) In the image with the +1.5ev I wanted to get more detail from the rocks on the shore, so I used a gradient to adjust the exposure in that area.  Using the three new exposures I did an HDR process in Nik HDR Efex Pro, and although the full-coloured resulting image was OK, I thought that in this instance I would get a better image using a black and white HDR rendering.

Ritual at Dawn

2011 Deck – Week 39

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography10 Comments

A Return to the Scene.

Last year Nikhil and I were unfortunate enough to be robbed, I did a post on it back then, although we were quite traumatised and our families admonished us to stop walking “all about the place” taking photographs, we haven’t stopped, and in that year we’ve made many more friends in the photographic circle in Guyana.  Thanks to Fidal and his idea of a Group on Facebook, we have been fortunate to meet other local photographers of varying expertise and different visions, just seeing what they’ve been doing has emboldened us to see a brighter future for photography in Guyana.

As a symbolic gesture we returned to the scene of the crime, this time, with more caution, and I was armed with a monopod! 🙂

The afternoon was not ideal for me, but I decided to try an HDR looking towards the spot where we were attacked and robbed.

Return to the scene
Return to the Scene

Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery.

2011 Deck – Week 38

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

On this week, I only went out to take photos on one occasion, and on that occasion I took 45 photos, and I was way odd that afternoon, most were very underexposed.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t feeling in the mood, I was fairly enthusiastic, I was enjoying the fresh air, the brief walk, and the scenery, but I never once looked down at the screen to check my photos, no chimping.

I was fairly disappointed but one of them had to work 🙂  I chose one that appealed to me in a general sense and felt that it would work well in monochrome, after playing with the processing for a while I found I wasn’t getting what I felt the scene needed, so I took the file into Nik’s HDR Efex to try a single image BW tone-mapping, and amazingly got what I thought was a good final processed image.  I would never consider this a true HDR, since I only used one image, but the tone-mapping of the HDR software helped bring out the details that I wanted in this image.

Walking West

2011 Deck – Week 35

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography8 Comments

Making Time.   If anyone has ever figured out how to get more hours out of the day, please let me know  🙂  Once in a while you just have to stop, and slow down.  Back in August (yes I’m writing this blog several months late) I was visiting with my in-laws and we decided to take a drive/walk out to the seawall at Lusignan.  I took some photos (many left to be processed) but I processed two sequences that I had intended for HDRs, and was somewhat satisfied with this one.

I think that I was still standing in the village of Lusignan, but I was looking towards Annandale,  I was told that somewhere ahead of me was an area known as Courbaine Park and (probably more to the left) is an area called Sand Reef.  As usual, when taking outdoor HDR images I tend to go for the clouds, there was a very nice layering and depth (or height) to the clouds.

I used Nik HDR Efex to merge and tone map the image.

Skies Over Annandale

I’m hoping to sneak in a blog post or two to catch up before the end of the year  🙂

2011 Deck – Week 19

On By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography12 Comments

City Hall.

I can’t seem to ever get enough photographs of this building, a heavy weight descends upon me when I go closer to it and see the effects of the neglect, the signs of disrepair, and the toll that the sun and rains take from this glorious wooden structure.

For last week I had not taken a single image for “artistic reasons”, I did do a snapshot of some newspapers for a Road Safety blog for The Alicea Foundation, but that’ wasn’t very artistic  🙂

Most of my HDR images usually use a fairly static scene, no moving elements, this week I decided to try one that included some movement, and try out the “ghost reduction” that Nik HDR Efex has built in, I think it worked very nicely.

Take a look at it larger in the gallery.