Red Beetle and Mosque 2 (HDR)

Yesterday there was little work to be done at work. So I left early and thought to myself this would be a good opportunity to take some shots of the Beetle and the Mosque with the partly cloudy sky. My recent uploads have all been in the form of HDR attacks. This one is no different. I wanted to get a different composition this time, with my tripod partly extended (around 60cm from the ground). I took several exposures with each time trying to make sure the same areas are in focus. This is a must in HDR shots as if one exposure you're using to generate the HDR has a different focus from the rest, you'll have a problem.

 

5 Photos combined in Photomatix, tonemapping was easier because I used the settings from my previous Beetle HDR. I'm getting more familiar with the technique and in Photoshop of course the enhancements included some sharpening, noise reduction, color saturation and cropping. The palm leaves appear blurry because it was windy and that couldn't be helped. But I feel it does give this shot a nice soft touch.

 

A brief explanation about HDR which stands for Hyper Dynamic Range.

 

This is a popular technique that started a few years ago with Digital Photographers, and it usually means combining more than one photo into one final shot. Keeping the composition exactly the same (via tripod) and all of the settings except for the exposure bias (Shutter speed). Having more than one exposure enables a digital photograph to undergo a complete transformation, because when you combine the different photos you've taken at different shutter speeds (exposures) you get one final photo with more color and light data than you do from a single digital photograph. That's why HDR shots appear to have a very unique quality and so much detail in them. HDR images can be achieved by using at least 2 and up until 16 different exposures (shots).

 

There are some programs that are specifically made to generate HDR images, I use Photomatix www.hdsoft.com which is a very user friendly HDR maker. There are other alternatives and even an HDR utility in Photoshop CS2 and CS3, but from my experience Photomatix has worked more than well for me.

 

For more HDR shots, please visit my HDR set.

 

Canon EOS 400D.

Lens: 24-105 F4 L IS.

Shot on a tripod using cable shutter release.

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