Making high dynamic range pictures from one photograph

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I’ve always liked making High Dynamic Range photographs. These are created by merging several different pictures with different exposures. The idea is that the combined picture has a great range of light and dark. However, making the images can be a bit of a pain. You have to take three or more shots and then use a program to combine them. And if things in the picture move, for example a tree blown by the wind, you can get some annoying artefacts.

So yesterday I tried a simpler approach. I deliberately under exposed each picture to make sure that I captured the sky detail and then made the dark parts of the picture lighter using Lightroom. I’m quite pleased with the results.

Day out in Dalby Forest

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Today we actually went somewhere other than upstairs. We went to Dalby Forest. This is one of my favourite places in the whole wide world and today it was on fine form. Plenty of room for social distancing and facilities that were the cleanest I’ve ever seen them. We had a smashing time. I took a lens that I got just before lockdown that I’ve been waiting to play with for ages. The weather was kind to us, with interesting clouds in the sky and I’m very happy with the way the pictures came out.

I’m starting to like the outdoors again….

Free Sony Photo Editing with Capture One Express

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If you want a really good way to edit pictures, and you happen to have a Sony camera, then I can strongly recommend Capture One Express from Phase One. You can download it for free and it works very well with the raw format from Sony cameras.

I took the picture above on the way into c4di with my venerable old RX100 this morning and used Capture One to straighten it, light up the foreground a bit and sharpen some of the edges. I’m really very happy with the result.

One other neat trick, is that if you’ve got a camera like the RX100. It is very interesting to search a place like Thingiverse for your camera type. I’ve just done that and turned up a whole bunch of bounce flash adaptors, filter rings and cases that look like they might be worth printing out and using.

To the Moon!

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Today we went to see the moon in Hull Minster. Awesome. It hangs from a large steel structure that they’ve set up . I don’t really want to know how it fits together inside or how they printed it. I just want to marvel at it.

We actually saw the moon for the first time last week, when I took along my expensive cameras and fancy lenses to try and get a nice picture. Today I just had my smartphone with me and I ended up with what I consider better pictures - which is an interesting comment on the state of photography.

Lensbaby at Castle Howard

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A while back I bought a LensBaby lens. It's great fun. To adjust the aperture you fit little metal disks with different sized holes in them. And you can move the entire lens about on the front of the camera to get strange focusing effects. 

We went to Castle Howard today. Lovely place. I decided to leave the LensBaby on the camera to see what kind of results I got. Quite fun.

Misty Morning at c4di

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Got up bright and early to go and work down at c4di today. I've got all my robots set up there now (they've got plenty of space, which is nice) and I wanted to work on remote configuration of robot settings.

I was up so bright and early that the car was actually frozen solid. And as I drove into town a clear bright morning turned into something a bit foggy. But this did make for some nice photographs when the mist cleared a bit. 

Some seagulls 

c4di looking shiny

Dirty Lens Blues

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I took a good look at some of the photographs that I took yesterday and I noticed that parts of the image are a bit blurred. So I checked the lens surface and I was shocked by the amount of gunk on the glass. I don't remember wiping my nose on the lens (ugh) but It sure looked as if that was what I'd been doing. The lens was filthy and it was only after a bunch of wiping that I managed to rid of the muck.

I'm not a big fan of lens caps, it seems to me that they are a great way to transfer dust from the inside of your pocket to the surface of the lens, but I'm going to have to be a bit more careful in future. Although the pictures haven't turned out too badly.

A break in Bristol

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I've got the painting finished and the next step is to sort out the laminate I'm fitting in place of carpet. I always new there'd be a floor in the plan....

Anyhoo, bad jokes aside, we've headed to Bristol for a few days of being in a house that doesn't smell strongly of paint. As you do, we went for a walk around town and managed to climb Cabot Tower. It has a tiny spiral staircase to the top which gets quite exciting when you meet someone coming the other way. 

However, the view from the top is worth the tricky climb.  You can click through the picture to see the whole panorama in its glory.

Hull Photography Festival

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If you are in Hull I strongly, strongly, STRONGLY urge you to get down to the ground floor of Princess Quay Shopping Centre in the middle of town and take a look at the awesome photographs there.

I knew that there's a photography festival in Hull around this time of year but I'd no idea just how great it is. There are loads of exhibitions and also a whole bunch of special events over October which are worth taking part in if you're any kind of photographer, or just like looking at a lovely pictures. 

If you head to Princes Quay you can pick up a beautifully produced programme for the month. Alternatively you can get a look at the program here.