Why you should know how

True HDR is just a shot that has a High Dynamic Range, no more no less.

I'm mindful of what my camera can capture, while it doesn't dictate what I shoot, I'll try to frame the shot in a way that lets me capture as much info as the camera is capable of capturing. You should know your cameras limitations; If anything you should embrace them and get the most out of them. I guess we all know now that a camera is just not capable of capturing everything the eye can.

Old one shot's still got it

The brightness levels in this shot taken on the South bank in London,
Is within the dynamic range of my camera. I knew that already just as
I knew it when I shot Ange with the zippo. The light in this scene
was twice as bright as the shot of Ange. You can't tell that as I
exposed for the light. It's not something the viewer needs to know
but it's important that I knew it


Now of course you shouldn't be thinking about these things if you're looking at photographs. But you should know about it; You should know about it because you're a picture maker, you should understand it because shooting without knowing what you're doing is like shooting without intent or arriving at a destination and not knowing how you got there.

It has nothing to do with style, it's invisible. You never thank a writer for spelling well or having correct grammar (Something I struggle with). You never thank a musician for staying in tune


You learn it, so you can forget about it.


"Develop an infallible technique, then put yourself at the mercy of inspiration."

Zen maxim

Why

Me old mate Ken said in the HDR post that people forget why they photograph. I guess that you could say that most pictures aren't worth remembering. That's nothing new and it'll always be so

So why bother

If I could tell that kid anything it would be something that's already been said below, better than I ever could. I'll just stick to taking his picture

HDR

Has the blood run from your veins, Kras?


I know, I know... It does the same to me. But fear yee not! You're noting going to see some acid trip landscape. I'm just going to waffle about my first go with some HDR software. I just want to use it to control dynamic range, I'm not after cranking it up to 11.

I've been testing two bits of software. Nik HDR Pro and Photomatix which are the big players in HDR software. This is not an in depth review of the software, I know very little about either of them but when it comes to trying to keep your photographs looking like an actual photographs, Photomatix gets my vote. It's just been easier to achieve and I'm sure I'll get better at it as it's my first time

Boring but a good test, three shots from inside our lounge looking out to the garden.
Each shot is 2 stops apart

So I loaded them in to Photomatix and here's the result

As a first attempt I'm quite pleased with the test result. Shot on a tripod naturally, but there are options for hand holding that I haven't tried. I can see some banding and I'll look in to that. Might  need another shot or two as that's quite a high contrast range to deal with. I'm sure I'll get better results with more use


Edit:

Seems a much easier deal outside. I'd personally find it hard to tell that is was an HDR shot. In fact because of the Dynamic range it's quite film like (click on the shot)

Three shots from 1/125 sec to 1/1000 sec

Brain meter

Ange f/11 @ 1/100 sec iso 125

That exposure is my anchor point for the lights Ange is in. bright shade, no shadows, just one stop down from Sunny sixteen. I don't normally go beyond F/11 (diffraction). Had it been a stop brighter I'd have just used an exposure of f/11 @ 1/250 of sec which is my anchor point for bright sunshine (harsh shadows)

The real beauty is that there is only 5 stops between any situation you'll find out in the daytime. You don't need spot metering, evaluative metering or any other kind of metering. Your peepers are incident light meters which are far superior than a cameras reflective metering. Your experience of shooting in that light and your inbuilt light meter is far more reliable than any camera you'll ever own

Next time you're out in bright sunlight set you camera to f/16 @ 1/100 sec iso 100 and you'll have nailed the exposure. That's your anchor for that light. You can than change it to f/11 @ 1/250th f/8 @ 1/500th f/5.6 at 1/1000 sec and on and on. It's it's the same exposure for the same scene you just control how you get there based on what you need.

Bright midday sun to the darkest shade is just 5 stops. F/16 to f/4 @ 1/100 sec iso 100, covers everything that daylight's going to throw at you.

Just 5 stops... aint that a comfort?


A must read even for us city dwellers

A Charity Walk

The motley crew went on a bit of a charity walk round Canvey Island in aid of Fairhavens.

Here we are tucking in to a good English breaky at the end. Don't quite know why but I love this shot of Kev & Angie.

Pass the salt!

Kras

Shooting manual

I've shot manual for almost all of the time that I've been using a camera that allows that control. It's also very rare that I use lights on auto (E-TTL) mode. The two main reasons being
1: consistence
2: I don't like the camera/lights guessing at what I'm trying do

Just been fooling around in the kitchen and took two quick snaps

One in Manual

f/5.6 @ 1/50 sec iso 800

I wanted it dark, I wanted  the light to be subdued & Kinda cinematic. I wanted just enough depth of field to leave some detail for the living room. I could have increased the ISO by a stop which would have allowed me to stop down to f/8.0 for more DOF while keeping the same exposure. But it's only a test (shots are unedited)


Auto

F/2.0 @ 1/60 sec iso 800

Well you can see what the camera's thinking, expose for the door frame. It sure as hell wasn't what I was thinking. Trouble is it has no idea what I want to do, only I know that. TV & AV mode didn't fair any better. Shutter priority (1/50 sec) gave me F/1.4!

Lets say though I'd have been happy with that but changed the focus to the cups. Well you'd have had a different exposure entirely

You don't have those issues shooting manual. Once you know the exposure you can balance it out anyway you want to, you have full control, the exposure will be consistent from shot to shot.

Same with lighting. When I took that shot of me reading the Book that Ken bought me (fine book) I tried the lights in E-TTL and it was so inconsistent. It's easily tricked by changing focus. There are times when it's handy but seldom have I found it to be much use in tough lighting

I think shooting manual is part of the craft to, it's just good practice. Even if you prefer to shoot in TV AV or full auto dipping your toes in manual will be a good exercise

You can make a small fortune in photography...

You just need to spend a large one first.


So I'm going to start charging for my photography and as I've already spent a fortune on gear it shouldn't be too painful. Having said that, my Epson R2880 just isn't going to cut it. It's a fine printer but it's only A3 and isn't intended for heavy use, it only comes with 11ml cartridges which just isn't cost effective for commercial use. It makes stunning prints and for a serious user that wants the control and enjoyment of making their own prints at homed it's hard to fault.

Have a look at this baby

It costs £3120 (ouch I know) It's 24 inches wide and will print on roll media up to the length of the roll (looooong panoramas). Epson have a cost calculator on their site. A 24x24 inch canvas print will cost £9.24 in ink and canvas, which might seem a lot until you go looking to have that done for you. Cheapest I've found so far is around £45 without delivery and they're using machines of a similar spec.

I need to cut out the middle man and take the profit for myself. I'll have to learn how to stretch and hang the canvas which I'm sure I'll manage. The 7900's big brother is Epson 9900 which can print up to a 44 inch wide and would be my dream machine I could make a lot of profit on that. I'd be limited to a width of 24 inches with the 7900 and you know how things are, people always want bigger


Anybody needing a spare kidney, please drop me a line