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Monday, February 07, 2011

Filed under: Market Served •Fine Art •Nature •Sports •Stock •Travel •Products •Photoshop •

HDR Efex by Nik

Tom Bol | 02/07

HDR processing made simple.

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HDR, or high dynamic range, photography has become very popular in the last few years. This process allows the photographer to render details in high contrast scenes including sunny day landscapes and building interiors, both shadows and highlights will have detail.  All you need to do is bracket your exposures 1/2 stop or more for multiple frames.  I often bracket around 1 stop for 5 frames to get good results.  Using HDR techniques in Arches National Park in the middle of the day I could shoot Double Arch and still get details in my shadows while not blowing out my highlights.

Initially programs like Photomatix offered an easy way to get good results processing HDR images.  And the latest version of photoshop also does a fine HDR merge.  But with both these options you never knew what your final image would look like until it was processed.  But now that has changed with HDR Efex by Nik.

This HDR software allows you to see the final result of a number of different HDR variations before you apply the process.  Not only that, but Nik’s software offers numerous HDR processes including catagories like ‘realistic’, ‘surreal’ and ‘artistic’.  Better yet, once you have applied the HDR process you still have full control to alter the effect by using adjustment sliders…things like exposure, contrast, saturation and tone compression are all available.  In addition to processing bracketed images, I really like to process one image for creative effects.  I was recently in the Dominican Republic and found this street scene.  To add a little drama to the shot, I did a ‘surreal’ process on the shot.  If you are interested in HDR processing, chances are you will like this new software.

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HDR would probably help me. I’ve been figuring out on how to use the tips given from the other articles that relates to photography. Now I’m still studying this review since this would help me improve my addiction.

Posted by Dogbeds  on  07/13  at  10:43 PM

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Use gels on your flash for special effects.

Tom Bol | 05/11- 05:35 AM

Adding gels to your flash and changing white balance creates unique images.

I like to follow this principle.  “The more skills you have, the better your chances for success.”  I used to use this principle as a climbing instructor when teaching students rope systems.  Inevitably on some climb something wouldn’t go right, maybe a simple thing like getting a rope stuck.  The more rescue and climbing systems you knew, the better your chances of having a solution to fix the problem.
The same is true for photographers.  Every photographer has a story about a ‘photo shoot gone bad.’  Strobes don’t fire, talent doesn’t show up, permits aren’t in order.  What separates one photographer from another is how they deal with these situations.  Clients like photographers who have solutions, not problems.  Knowing more technical skills behind the camera also helps.  And one of my favorite things to do is add gels to flash to spice things up.

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Creative Use of High Speed Sync

Tom Bol | 04/29- 10:11 AM

Use high speed sync to add mood to your shot.

When most people think of high speed sync, they think fast shutter speeds and freezing the action.  True, shooting at 1/8000 with flash is going to freeze the action no matter what the main light source is illuminating the subject.  But what about other uses of high speed sync and flash.  Until the release of the Pocket Wizard Flex system and Hypersync (see my last post), I was often frustrated shooting in bright sun.  I needed an aperture of F16 to get the right exposure at 1/200, my fastest sync speed using my Elinchrom Rangers.  What if I wanted to use a wide open aperture like F2.8 to get soft focus and blur out the background?  The answer is use high speed sync for selective focus shots in bright, sunny conditions.  Maybe high speed sync should be called ‘soft focus sync.’

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