Photography Basics
LVS
Instructor: Al Mierau
May, 2009
R. Joanne Johnson
Week 4
The Photos for Week 4
Shutter Priority
This time, I took over 400 photos and rejected most of them! I do have several I am happy with (21 to be exact) and hope that they 'illustrate' something about shutter priority. I also tried to frame some subjects and also a bit of HDR.
Yesterday, June 17, 2009, was a full photo day with all photos being taken in Roger Williams Park, Providence which is about 5 minutes from home. I used the Carousel, Botanical Center, the Temple to Music and a bridge and small waterfall all within the park. Here is a link which describes the park. Roger Williams Park
Some of these sujects I have photograped before and in comparing the EXIF information found that the Auto on the camera did a very good job of choosing shutter speeds!
HDR
High Dynamic Range was great fun to experiment. I have, since yesterday, learned a few things to improve my results:
- Use Shutter Speed to get exposure variations (never Aperture), not Exposure Compensation as I was doing!!!
- Tripod to avoid any movement between the exposures
- Shoot RAW, gives the greatest tonal differences
I tried both Photomatix, trial, and Photoshop. I think with further experimentation it is possible to get the same (or at least similar results) as Photomatix with Photoshop (I am using CS4). The image must be converted from 32 bit to 16 bit (using the Curves in Local Adaptation)and then can be toned and colored with Adjustment Layers, reduced to 8 bit and saved as .jpg. I have downloaded the Photomatix plug-in for Photoshop and will be trying that. I love the surreal look of HDR, almost like Photorealistic painting and want to learn more about it. Here are my samplses...
The photos are from Roger Williams Park. The 1st and 3rd were done with Photomatix, the middle with Photoshop CS4. Clicking the thumbnails will open a larger image in a new window.
The photos (all EXIF data on slides pages):
Week 4
- A swallowtail butterfly was browsing the rhododendrons near the stream and bridge
- Framing the falls on the other side with the old stone bridge
- Capturing the foam and shooting bubbles of the falls
- See #3
- It was difficult to get that smooth, unreal look I was after because these falls were not a good candidate for that kind of shot
- See #5
- Framing some ducks with the overhead tree and their bottom reflection
- Capturing a moving obeject, carousel animals, by panning or pivoting with the camera as the object moves
- See #8
- See #8
- See #8
- See #8
- See #8
- See #8
- See #8
- Fountain dripping in the Botanical Center
- Koi pond with lively fish
- Waterfall at back of the small koi pond
- Beautiful white fish in motion
- Closest I will get to that blurred, satiny waterfall I will get until I get somewhere with the right kind of falls
- Framed water feature at the Botanical Center
