HDR Photography with Scott Dimond

HDR master Scott Dimond (Gemstone Images) spoke with the Calgary Photographic Society about incorporating HDR into our work.

For landscapes, the photographer is often forced to deal with a bright sky and a darker foreground that falls outside of the dynamic range of most DSLRs.  In cases where there is a clean linear division between the sky and foreground a graduated ND filter was/is the traditional solution.  GradND filters do not work, however, when you have more complex scenes with no clean horizon and that is one area where HDR shines.  In these instances you can shoot a series of photographs correctly exposed for each element in the photograph.  Using HDR software these images can be pulled together into a single image where the properly exposed sections of each image are used.

Scott's Shooting Workflow:

• Static subject.
• Camera on Tripod!
• Focus and then turn of AF
• Shoot in aperture priority or manual
• Dial back the exposure enough that you have a gap at the dark end of the histogram.  This means you are not clipping any detail in the shadows.
• Work your way up the bright end taking an exposure every couple stops
• Keep shooting until your histogram shows a gap on the bright end.  Once you reach this point you are no longer clipping highlight detail.
• The key is to take enough images that you are never clipping detail.

Post Workflow:

• Load images into Aperture/Lightroom and perform minimal correction (white balance)
• Apply any adjustments consistently to ALL images in the HDR set
• Export frames to TIFF files (make sure that EXIF information stays with image)
• Load those into Photomatix
• Use "Exposure Fusion" for natural looking HDR and "Tone Mapping" for something a bit more wild

Links:

• Photomatix is a very popular commercial HDR offering.
• Hydra is a commercial HDR offering with Lightroom, PS, and Aperture plugins.
• Enfuse is a free command-line tool for merging multiple exposures together.

Quick Summary of George Barr’s Talk

Photographer George Barr (website / blog) spoke with us yesterday evening about his photography and shared a good collection of his landscape images.  This is just a quick dump of my notes for his presentation and not any sort of formal review.

George has published quite a number of articles in a number of prestigious fine art photography magazines (Black and White Magazine and LensWork Magazine, for example) and is the author “Take your Photography to the Next Level”.  He currently has another book in the works.  He’s also written essays on Luminous Landscape.

George recommended a number of shooting locations (and concluded that we, as a whole, need to get out more because there was not nearly the head nodding of recognition that he expected…):

1. Jura Canyon
2. Bad Lands (Restricted Area) near Drumheller
3. Independent Machinery in Inglewood
4. Pioneer Acres
5. Redrock Canyon in Waterton

George uses a number of software tools above and beyond the usual Adobe wares:

1. Helicon Focus – Focus blending software.  For landscapes where there are very close foreground elements George stitches the in-focus bits on multiple exposures to create a single image with almost infinite depth of field.
2. PTgui – Panoramic image stitching software.  Many of George’s landscapes are stitched from a large number of images (usually only one strip).

George strongly recommended subscribing to LensWork Magazine for any photographer who has an interest in black and white photography.  Their print quality is so good it gives a good benchmark for your own work.

Random Photoshop tip from George: Unsharp Mask (25,50,0) works great for increasing local contrast of an image.

-- Jeff

April Guest Speaker : Noah Fallis

This is Noah.  Noah is addicted to light.  Everyone say “Hi Noah”!

We had the pleasure of speaking with Calgary photographer Noah Fallis in April’s meeting.  Noah falls under the somewhat unique category of architectural / fashion photographer.  Most of what Noah spoke about, however, was his architectural work.

I think most of us are guilty, to some extend, of gadget accumulation.  We are probably all familiar with lugging far too much camera equipment around for even a simple day trip (which lens? tripod? body? reflector? flash(s)? etc.).  Noah brings this to an extreme where he brings 2,400 lbs (or maybe only 400lbs. my notes are messy) of gear with him on an architectural shoot.  This would include typical stuff like cameras, tripods, lighting stands, laptops, lights, grids and other assorted lighting modifiers, but also less obvious things like ladders, spare light bulbs (to replace obnoxious CFDs) and a fleet (~30!) of tiny AA powered slave flashes (like this one). 

When shooting interiors Noah shoots with his camera tethered to his laptop to give him a much better preview of his final image (19” vs. 3” hmmm).  Each photo setup with lighting will take him, on average, one to two hours.  A client will typically be given 15 or so finished images and a selection of grab/detail shots.  Most of the time each day of shooting will be followed by a half day of post.

Noah offered a number of great tips:

1. Architecture should look 3D not flat.  Lighting should bring out as much depth and texture as possible.
2. Black wrap (that heavy black tinfoil) is your best friend for improvising lighting modifiers and protecting show-home hardwood floors from equipment failures (you probably had to be there for that to make sense)
3. Blend exposures.  Balancing the lighting between a building interior and exterior is difficult. If you do want to show scenery outside the window blending exposures is a good way to accomplish that.
4. Don’t work for cheap.  Either work for free or be expensive.

CPS has been fortunate to have some wonderful speakers and Noah Fallis falls right in with the best of them.  His talk was fascinating and his images absolutely stunning.

You can find Noah on-line on his website www.noahfallis.com.

March Guest Speaker: Peter Gold

Our guest speaker for March was Peter Gold. He is an professional photographer who also works down at the Camera Store.

Peter started shooting weddings in the early 70's using nothing but natural light. His favourite shots usually involved window light. Peter remember building his first reflector from a large deli tray wrapped in aluminum foil. Improvising is key when you first start out. Peter then went on to show some of his other low cost lighting props such as a Home Depot flood light, and a small Lexan mirror.

Peter has been doing portraits for most of his career and has even photographed Ralph Klein a couple of times. One of his key tips on portrait photography is to have a point of interest for your subject to focus on. Peter uses a small yellow puppet that resembled Big Bird. This keeps the subjects eyes from wandering and usually puts a smile on their face. Peter recalls that Ralph Klein remembered "You’re the one with the bird!" at a later photo shoot.

Peter went on to give an quick lighting demonstration. Using the Home Depot flood light and one reflector he demonstrated how to get a nice 1:10 contrast ratio. His advice on reflectors was key to anyone who has never used them before.

"Because reflected light is absorbed differently, you want to move the reflector in until it looks like just a little too much light. That’s the sweet spot."

Peter’s website : http://www.goldphotography.com/

-- Ryan Pahl

February Guest Speaker : Pamela Klaffke

Pamela Klaffke, a journalist, author , and a local fine art photographer, spoke to the CPS in February’s meeting and shared with us a number of her images.

Her images frequently featured serious light leaks, blur, extreme film grain and distorted colors; attributes which, were they submitted in our print competition, would normally draw fire from our panel of judges.  However, it all really worked with her images.  They were stunning.  Much of her work involves surreal scenes and that subject matter really works well with her techniques.

She shoots film exclusively and uses toy cameras such as the now infamous Holga and a number of others including the venerable K1000 (decidedly not a toy), the Vivitar Ultrawide & Slim and the Vivitar IC101 Panorama.  She is the first person I’ve heard of who (a) uses only expired film, (b) intentionally damages her film before use!

Pamela runs a large number of websites including her personal pages (and flickr), a serial-story project, a dollar store doll art project, and a number of websites dedicated to analog photography. 

http://www.pamelaklaffke.com/