How to Take Great HDR Photography |  |
- How to Take Great HDR Photography
- Incredible Self Portrait Captured Under Melting Glacier
- Lighting Techniques for Professional Food Photography (Video)
- Learn from the Legend: Photography Tips from Master Photographer Ansel Adams (Video)
| How to Take Great HDR Photography Posted: 19 Sep 2013 09:49 PM PDT HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is one of the more exciting techniques in the world of digital photography. HDR is essentially a number of different exposures of the same composition merged in specialty software to one single, high dynamic range image. In simple terms, the camera will see what you or I can see, rather than making the best of a poorly lit scene within a single exposure. One of the most appealing aspects of HDR is the ability to take images that instantly stand out from the crowd, be it through stunning contrast, eye-popping colours, or the capturing of tiny details within the image.  “Golden Hour” captured by Gagan Dhiman (Click Image to See More From Gagan Dhiman) However, HDR is a technique which is not without its critics. It can make an average shot look like a great one, including those that were poorly conceived in the first place. This is why it has detractors; it is too often akin to hitting the easy button to create a great image. This, though, is not necessarily fair. Most professional photographers can tell great HDR shots from poor HDR shots. The key difference is that, very often, great HDR does not look like HDR at all! Rather, it will very often look like an extremely well exposed image. Like any image, creating good HDR is not an easy process and is not something that can be created with a few simple clicks in Photoshop. It is something that must be well grounded in the camera itself. Generating great HDR is as much of an art form as any other form of digital photography. Reducing noise, ghosting, and unnecessary highlights requires a skill that rivals other forms of post-processing. Be aware, though, that HDR is not a genre within itself. It is a means to an end, and it should not necessarily be the basis of a great image. That said, follow the steps below and you will begin to be able to compose the scenes you previously felt you did not have the ability to capture.  “Boat” captured by Gagan Dhiman (Click image to see more from Dhiman.) To begin with, you need a digital camera (probably a DSLR) that can bracket images and has a reasonable frames per second rating. The first thing you are going to do (other than compose the scene, of course) is to decide how many images you need to bracket (i.e. how many differently exposed images you need of the scene). This is how to do it:
The results should be a great set of RAW images that will form the essential ingredients to creating great HDR. However, the work is not over yet. You’ve got to put those ingredients together to come up with the final product.  “Gold Tips HDR” captured by Mitch Johanson (Click image to see more from Johanson.) Without a doubt, the best post-processing tool is Photomatix. The noise and ghosting controls (compensation for subject movement) are second to none, and unfortunately that includes Photoshop. Photomatix is relatively inexpensive, though, and you will be able to get a copy for approximately $150. There is a place for Photoshop though–Adobe Camera Raw, in particular. This is where you should perform all of your post-processing touch ups, sharpening, colour balance corrections, etc. About the Author: Photomatix Coupon for PictureCorrect Readers:Photomatix was nice enough to provide a discount to PictureCorrect readers on any version of their software. For 15% off, remember to use the photomatix coupon code picturecorrect at checkout. The software can be acquired Here on the Photomatix Site For Further Training on HDR Photography:If you are interested in furthering your skills in HDR photography, this course can definitely help. Trey Ratcliff, arguably the most popular and successful HDR photographer ever, has released an extensive HDR Photography training course which has received very good reviews. If you are unfamiliar with his work, Trey created the first HDR photo to ever be hung in the Smithsonian Museum and he has been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, NPR, and the BBC. For 15% off, remember to use the discount code picturecorrect at checkout. The Training Course He Offers Can Be Found Here Go to full article: How to Take Great HDR Photography |
| Incredible Self Portrait Captured Under Melting Glacier Posted: 19 Sep 2013 05:00 PM PDT If you had to choose a few words to sum up 2013, selfies would be one of them. Facebook and other social media sites have become saturated in these self-portraits usually taken with a cell phone camera. But Jonathan Tucker‘s latest photo is no ordinary selfie. This photographer took the time to capture a photo of himself while beneath a glacier in Alaska:  Perhaps one of the most amazing self-portraits you’ll find (Via Imgur) Though it may look like the photographer just snapped a quick photo, much work probably went into the creation of this one image. Framing a self portrait can be particularly difficult since you can’t see what the image will look like while you’re standing in the photo until after you’ve taken the shot. Also notice that this is a long-exposure (or possibly a composite of a long exposure and short exposure). The water on the lower half of the frame is nice and smooth meaning the shutter was left open for some time to capture the movement of the water. Go to full article: Incredible Self Portrait Captured Under Melting Glacier |
| Lighting Techniques for Professional Food Photography (Video) Posted: 19 Sep 2013 02:52 PM PDT For William Brinson, it’s all about the details. In fact, it’s the attention he innately gives the details that made him one of the country’s premier food photographers. Having graduated Savannah School of Design, Brinson moved to New York City to pursue a dream of becoming a fashion photographer. However, after working in the industry for a while, Brinson realized that his favorite part of the job was setting up and paying attention to what was going on in the background of his photographs. This revelation moved Brinson into becoming a food photographer and he hasn’t looked back since. Listen to him speak about his passion in this short clip: Brinson enjoys recreating his favorite types of natural light, such as the morning sun or the light of rainy day at his grandparents beach house. In an effort to control the light in the perfect way, Brinson introduced frosted plexiglass which he lit from behind and placed cards around the scene for ultimate control of the light
In the above photo we see Brinson at work with one of his more commonly used setups. Note the tall black folded cards strategically placed around the food. This style of setup helps him create photos such as this one we see below.
Go to full article: Lighting Techniques for Professional Food Photography (Video) |
| Learn from the Legend: Photography Tips from Master Photographer Ansel Adams (Video) Posted: 19 Sep 2013 10:39 AM PDT Moonrise, Hernandez. Monolith, the Face of Half Dome. Clearing Winter Storm. You know the photographs, and you know the man behind the camera: Ansel Adams, one of history's greatest landscape photographers—but did you also know that Adams was an exceptional concert pianist, or that he thinks of photography like music? Did you know that he had a deep love for nature, and especially the rugged Californian wilderness? Did you know that Adams hated the word "shoot," scorned bracketing, and even dabbled in portraiture for a time, if only to pay the bills? In this 1983 interview with BBC, Adams revealed all of this about himself and more, including some truly profound photography advice: Adams shared an entire lifetime of knowledge in the interview, but perhaps some of his most relevant and useful advice pertained to the topics of visualization and composition. Adams believed that there are two types of photographers—the photographer who takes average quality exposures and manipulates them, expecting miracles in Photoshop, or the photographer who learns to visualize finalized, edited photographs "in his mind's eye" before taking the shot, to capture ideal shots simply with proper exposure. Only by envisioning the final product beforehand can photographers learn to expose photos properly and abandon crutches like bracketing.
 Adams describes the difficulty of exposing “Arches, North Court, Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona, 1968.” However, while visualization seems to require a great deal of time waiting and pondering the perfect composition, Adams insisted that it must become an automatic, instinctive process requiring only a matter of seconds. Whereas painters have time to mull over the proper arrangement of shapes, photographers have seconds at best to work with what is available to them.
Adams also paid particular attention to the "mood" of his photographs, since he believed that a photograph is "the equivalent" of what the photographer saw and felt about a particular scene or subject. However, when asked to explain his emotions, Adams always found himself at a loss.
In that way, photography is a lot like poetry, Adams concluded with a chuckle, and added, "If that's not too pretentious to say."  Adams died one year after this 1983 BBC interview, at age 82. Considering that Adams donated all of his negatives to the Center of Creative Photography in Tucson and regarded the dawning digital age of photography with excitement, he was not at all pretentious. While many master artists have viewed their particular tools as the purest means by which to produce art, Adams described this "new electronic medium," where RAW digital image files would replace negatives and Photoshop would replace the dark room, as “marvelous.”
Go to full article: Learn from the Legend: Photography Tips from Master Photographer Ansel Adams (Video) |
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