The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.

[Knuckledragger]

Unfortunately, Flickr blocks hotlinks when one replaces a photo, and I can't edit the above post, so...

[archosman]

A sensor alone says nothing really. It's the processor that makes it work (or not). In general lines one could say that bigger sensors in DSLRs work better than their smaller brothers because they are trying to throw sooo many megapixels into one small bit that when looking at the signal-noise ratio FF beats APS-C hands down.

Read a pretty good explanation about this a while back. Essentially what the camera companies are doing is creating a higher megapixel on the exact same size sensor. Unfortunately the drawback to this is you're making smaller pixels that in turn get less light which then creates more noise, ect. Seems like the expensive full-frame sensor cameras are the way to go. Higher megapixel counts don't necessarily make a better picture. Then again it's really who's behind the camera that makes the difference too.

[Knuckledragger]

Hello head-case. Miss me? (Of course not.) I've been busy for the last few weeks on Marthas Vineyard. Did you know that preparing to blow up a house is even more difficult than preparing to rent one? A pity they won't let me do both...

While I was there I had a lot of fun taking pictures:

Made with three exposures in Photomatix ...twice, and then blended in Photoshop. It took a lot of futzing to get the ghostly look I wanted for the trees, and balancing that with the reflection of the clouds.

A 10 second exposure turns the moon into the sun. The Edgartown lighthouse is in the foreground.

Twilight over Jernegan pond. Made with three exposure in Photomatix, and cleaned up in Photoshop.

I spent the better part of forever converting this shot from color to black & white, and then toning it.

Edgartown's South Beach. Made from one raw exposure in Photomatix, and worked over extensively in Photoshop.

I foolishly forgot my tripod, so I perched my 30D on a pier piling, turned its drive mode to the fastest setting and fired off three bracketed exposures. Processed in Photomatix and worked over extensively in Photoshop.

~3 1/2 minute exposure. The orange glow is not the dawn, it's light from the mainland.

Fun with sun stars: ~45 second exposure of a deserted downtown Edgartown.

The path to South Beach. Made from one raw exposure.

[jinp6301]

wow

[Voltron]

Very cool stuff Knuckles.

[Hopstretch]

Fantastic! Welcome back.

[Dusty Chalk]

Yes, actually, I did miss you. To the point where I started posting "Wat."

Nice pics!

[Knuckledragger]

Awww.

When I got back from MV, the replacement infrared-converted Canon PowerShot G2 was waiting for me. Yesterday I had to drive to town to my pay my sodding property tax. The center of B'town is quite pretty in early may. Last year at this time I walked around for a couple hours and shot exposures that I converted to HDR. This time I had a go with the new IR camera:

Metering with infrared is a trial-and-error process, at best. Also learning a new camera and the relative difference between what its meter says, what its LCD reports, and what the images actually look like on my (calibrated) Mac monitor is always a "learning experience." I had to work over all of these images in Photoshop pretty thoroughly to get decent results, but I'm pretty pleased with the final products.

[Knuckledragger]

Photomatix has been making me angry, so I've been checking out some of the competition.

This is the first image I've done with Dynamic Photo HDR. The app itself is arm-gnawingly ugly, and reeks of its Windows/CrossOver origins. Furthermore, its controls are alien and difficult to use. All of that said, it made a decent end product from the source images I fed it, where Photomatix 3.1.3 only produced crap. I don't think Dynamic Photo HDR is going to replace Photomatix in my HDR workflow, but it looks like it has some potential to work with troublesome source files. I do wish that it was slightly (massively) better coded, and at least passed EXIF info. This image was made with three exposures and not post-processed at all.

Twilight over Moody Bridge Road in Hadley. Made from one raw exposure in Dynamic Photo HDR, and cleaned up in Photoshop.

I've processed this shot previously in Photomatix and Photoshop. This time I ran it through DynamicPhoto HDR, on the "Ultra-Contrast" setting and futzed with the controls a little bit. The image looks a bit like what the tone compressor function in Photomatix produces. I still find DPHDR to be seriously counter-intuitive and juniorized, especially compared to Photomatix. That said, it isn't nearly as frustrating as Photomatix has been since version 2.5. The color saturation is a little lurid in this one, but the hue is pretty good.

Another of the "I forgot my tripod" series. I set my camera down on the railing of the upper level of the Edgartown wharf and fired off three bracketed exposures. I was unhappy with the results I got with them in Photomatix, so I ran them through DynamicPhoto HDR. I then worked over the HDR composite in Phototshop at length. I'm pretty happy with the end results.

[dark-hc]

Wow, amazing shots. What lens are you using for your landscapes?

[Knuckledragger]

Thanks. All of those were taken with the EF 17-40mm F/4L.

[Dusty Chalk]

There were words between those gorgeous pictures, I'm sure of it. My peripheral vision caught some of it. Something about software and whining, I think.

[Knuckledragger]

I took this photo at the club where I sometimes work. I'm rather pleased with it.

[Dusty Chalk]

Very nice! Album-cover-worthy, even. How'd you get everyone else to disappear?

[Knuckledragger]

There was no one behind her. The wall of the nightclub is only about two feet back, and I use fairly tight framing. The dancefloor is to the right of her.

[aardvark baguette]

Very nice! Album-cover-worthy, even.

Reminds me of the Rage Against The Machine s/t

[Sherwood]

Glad to hear that you're testing the software waters for us, Knuckles. I'm about ready to ditch photomatix, much as I love the layout. It has unavoidable halos on almost everything with any DOF, and only two light-smoothing options are usable.

I like the photo below, but it illustrates the halo issue well:

[HeadphoneAddict]

The 3D effect is kinda eery and the clouds look like cotton balls attached to blue painted glass. If you took the sky as the only element in the photo, and flipped it, it might look like the earth photographed from space.

[Hopstretch]

...

He lives!

[guzziguy]

Glad to hear that you're testing the software waters for us, Knuckles. I'm about ready to ditch photomatix, much as I love the layout. It has unavoidable halos on almost everything with any DOF, and only two light-smoothing options are usable.

I like the photo below, but it illustrates the halo issue well:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3362/3548093568_9f34d17f4f_o.jpg

Nice pic of the Sonora desert. It makes me homesick for my college days.

[Knuckledragger]

I generally only use the high and very high light smoothing settings in Photomatix. There are rare occasions where I'll use the medium setting. The lower two are garbage. They remind of processing HDR in Photoshop CS2.

This image is the result of an elaborate workflow. I combined three images in Photomatix, and genrated an .hdr file. I then opened it with DynamicPhoto HDR (which objected, but loaded it anyway.) I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the tone mapping in DPHDR and saved it as a jpeg. Then I worked it over pretty thoroughly in Photoshop. The end result is kind of bizarre, but not without merit. The effect of using Photomatix for the HDR process instead of DPHDR seems to be a lot less CA, a bit less noise. Likewise, the image was much higher in contrast. I'm not sure if I like that last bit.

[Dusty Chalk]

Nice, I can almost smell the dampness of the wind.

[HeadphoneAddict]

He lives!

That was my first thought too.

[NoValidTitle]

I generally only use the high and very high light smoothing settings in Photomatix. There are rare occasions where I'll use the medium setting. The lower two are garbage. They remind of processing HDR in Photoshop CS2.

<snip>

This image is the result of an elaborate workflow. I combined three images in Photomatix, and genrated an .hdr file. I then opened it with DynamicPhoto HDR (which objected, but loaded it anyway.) I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the tone mapping in DPHDR and saved it as a jpeg. Then I worked it over pretty thoroughly in Photoshop. The end result is kind of bizarre, but not without merit. The effect of using Photomatix for the HDR process instead of DPHDR seems to be a lot less CA, a bit less noise. Likewise, the image was much higher in contrast. I'm not sure if I like that last bit.

I love that shot! In my opinion HDR gets overdone a lot but that shot is sweet and subtle.

Here is one I grabbed on my way back from Erie, the "Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania". Other than the resize it's straight off the camera with no editing. I really loved the sky.

[Dusty Chalk]

Nice.