Category Archives: Editorial

Breaking the Rules -Why you are not the Rebel you think you are

May
11
2017
by Peter | Comments Off

The following is a repost from my Business and Portfolio Website and blog. Posting it here in the hopes of farther reach

Breaking the Rules

Why you are NOT the Rebel you think you are

The Rules

Not a day goes by that I don’t hear a fellow photographer proclaim: “I know the rules so I can break them” then they also add in “I’m a Rebel”. I mean, I see this so often it’s actually become an annoyance and it’s really turned into just group speak. Someone said it and then everyone just repeats it without actually thinking about what it means. Well, I have. So lets take a little trip and see, what what with this.

But first a note. This article assumes you make photographs as art. The “rules” don’t apply to other photographic genres. Photojournalism is about telling a story, Sports, about capturing the moment, Commercial, about selling the product. While they may possibly contain art, it’s not a necessity. Continue reading »

Thought for the Day – First take a Great Photo

Dec
30
2012
by Peter | 4 Comments
Thought for the Day – First take a Great Photo…then shoot an HDR.
 
So often these days as I scan Google+ or 500px I see HDRs that I’m sorry, are just horrible photographs. The only thing of interest at all in them is that they are an HDR and sometimes I’ll admit, that alone draws the eye. But HDR should not be the feature, it should be a great photograph…and I used this technique to capture it. Anymore I don’t even say “I shot an HDR”, I simply, took a photograph
 
So I implore you to, First look for a great photograph, interesting light and shadow, texture and composition and then judge, what techniques do I need to use to capture my vision? If the scene is beyond the dynamics of your camera, THEN use HDR (or other methods) to capture it.
 
Thought for the day, short and sweet.
 
PT

HDR – What is it we actually do?

Dec
15
2012
by Peter | 1 Comment

 Editorial

I read with interest a post on Google+ the other day. A gentleman stated. “I’ve started to do more of my work in Lightroom”. Another poster asked, “You mean Tone-Mapping?” The first person replied, “No, I’m extending the Dynamic Range of a single image in Lightroom using the controls” 

So it made me think; Does anyone really understand what it is we do as HDR practitioners? I think not. 

Let’s make one thing clear up front: We are not creating High Dynamic Range images…wait let me say that again…WE ARE NOT CREATING HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGES. And in case you missed it, we… are…not…creating…high dynamic range… images. We simply aren’t. 

Continue reading »

I’ve been trying too hard – 3 is enough – Editorial

Dec
15
2011
by Peter | 7 Comments

So, I am the author of a blog on HDR so my images should be the best possible example of how to do HDR and be great images and I thought I was doing a fairly good job of that. But then for research on what people might be interested in learning I went on to  a lot of forums to see what people were talking about and how they were doing things.

I knew my methods and I thought they worked. But people were talking so differently and in large numbers of people were doing it differently than I. Heck even when I visited a major HDR software company, THEY were doing it differently.

They Say

Everyone was talking about 7 and 9 images shot. 1EV or smaller increments. making adjustments on the raw images before processing into an HDR ( I will only do White balance adjustments pre conversion). All kinds of thins to get the perfect image. And I thought to myself, my old adage that in most cases to shoot just 3 frames 2EV apart, surely must be wrong. I must just be lazy and I wasn’t putting enough effort into getting the best image possible.

So lately I was shooting 7 frames, 9 frames 10 frames! Standing on my head, wearing copper bracelets, eating vegan…anything to get that ultimate HDR Image…and they weren’t

It smacked me in the face the other evening after I shot the Hotel Del Coronado, I wasn’t even excited about shooting it because. I had to get it perfect because it was for a tutorial so the pressure was on and surely I needed to shoot 20 frames and lock my mirror up and…ugh. When I got home and processed the images. I first did the 6 frames 1EV spacing I had shot, then I went back and just did 3 frames 2EV apart. There was NO difference in fact the 3 frames were slightly better on white areas and only then when zooming into 100%. Visibly there was no difference and shooting more than 3 frames with closer spacing was in fact just a huge waste of time.

Whih is which?

 

 

It was at that point I thought back to my most successful HDR images almost all of them were shot with just 3 exposures . The reason the software company wanted to talk to me was because I was getting results they weren’t (Lots of exposures) This image, my most successful selling image…3 exposures.

My magazine cover… 3 exposures

 

 

 

 

 

We need to remember that when we take an exposure it doesn’t just span that 1EV or 2EV spacing,most of the exposures are easily covering a dynamic range of 6 – 7 stops. As we move to the  extreme ends of exposure our dynamic range will decrease because we fall into  the noise floor or blowout region. But we still have a wide enough dynamic range in each shot that 2EV spacing is enough. Are there times that we need to do more than 3 exposures? Of course there is and we saw in the Shooting the Sun  or Shooting Architectural Interiorspost, you may need to shoot beyond 3 because there is just that much Dynamic range that needs to be covered. But still 2EV pacing is fine, cover the range you have measured and stop. The worst sin of all is overshooting the range. Totally Blown out or most black exposures do nothing and in fact detract and take away detail  from the image.

So I will go back to my original statement. In most situations 3 Exposures  2 stops apart is sufficient and beneficial and will save you time in shooting and especially in processing time. You don’t need that agony of 10 exposures waiting for them to merge.

And my last bit of advice is; If the scene does not call for HDR, don’t use HDR. I think I was reminded of that when I was shooting the sun for that series. Later in the day in a pasture during the golden hour when the sun was low and soft and the dynamic ranges decrease and are able to be captured. I shot this image which turns out to be one of my favorite images of this year. Single exposure – no HDR. Is it a big and bold image like a lot of HDRs? Absolutely not. It’s a simple scene of a simple subject but with the essence of great photography…amazing and beautiful light

 

This all of course is just my opinion and I expect you to experiment and try and do what you find best. But this is my opinon for the day…and longer

Hope that helps,

PT