The other afternoon, Roxanne and I journeyed to Sarasota. She was armed with her Lensbaby Composer and 85mm f/1.4 lens. I took my tripod and did most of my shooting with my trusty 24-105mm f/4.0 L-Series lens. My goal was to get some shots I would convert to HDR images in Photomatix. But instead of taking one exposure and then exportting three different versions in Lightroom, I created all of my exposures in camera. I set the AEB (auto exposure bracketing) for 3 shots, one with normal exposure as metered by the camera, one at -2.0 EV and one at =2.0 EV. I set the timer for a 2-second delay in order to give the camera time to stablize after pressing the shutter. When I merged the different exposures together in Photomatix, I couldn’t believe the difference. The subtle details really pop when you merge three exposures. I’ve got to experiment more with multiple exposure HDR images, but I’m really pleased with some of the photos I created from this shoot.

Sarasota Alleyway

Grungy Alley

Rustic Inn

Pineapple Street

Pineapple Street Stores

Yesterday Roxanne and I started out shooting birds in the local landfill. I know what you’re thinking… But the place is full of birds, including eagles. Unfortunately, I don’t have a long enough lens to get a good shot. Then we went to the Venice Train Station to shoot some HDR images. Armed with our tripods and camera set to bracket each shot by 2 EV, we started shooting the train station. As the sun sank lower, we decided to go for the real grunge and ended up in a nearby industrial park. There’s something about junkyards and decrepit buildings that really comes alive when you run the images through Photomatix.

Cheers,
Doug

Venice Train Station

Industrial Grunge

Everything But The Junkyard Dog

On Sunday, Roxanne and I piled our equipment into the bird blind, and headed for a MeetUp photo shoot at a cattle ranch in Myakka City. Got to watch your step in cow country. At any rate, there was all sorts of awesome things to photograph: old barns, decrepit farm machinery, gnarly trees; and yes, even cows. The shoot was well organized. We had a great time. after the shoot, we meandered to Marina Jacks to photograph the marina as the sun set. Here’s one shot from the ranch, and one from the marina after a trip through Photomatix. Enjoy.

Dead Tree Trunks & Red Barn

Sarasota at Sunset

Take one dreamy Lensbaby shot, import it into Photoshop and then add a couple of layers that are pictures of a texture such as fabric, concrete, or plastic. Play around with the blend mode of the texture layers ’til you see something you like. These look great printed on heavy duty matte or fine art paper.

Sunset is a special time. Unfortunately the dynamic range found in a sunset is much more than a digital camera can handle. Fortunately there are programs like Photomatix that enable you to combine multiple exposures of the same scene and combine them to increase the dynamic range, giving you a result similar to what you see with the naked eye. You can shoot three images at different exposures with the camera securely mounted on a tripod, or shoot a single image in your camera’s RAW format, and then export three different exposures from Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop. For the sunset image you see below, I exported three versions of the same image, one at -2.o EV, one as captured by the camera, and another at +2.o EV.

Sunset in Sarasota Harbor

The City of Venice recently held a Christmas parade. Roxanne and I went downtown with the sole purpose of taking pictures and not watching the parade. Of course it was dark, which meant high ISO Speeds, in my case very high, some as high as ISO 6400. However, Noise Ninja made small work of removing the noise and giving me usable images. Stir in some fun with filters from Nik Multimedia, and I ended up with some interesting stuff. Oh yeah, I also used the Lensbaby Creative Aperture Kit on the Christmas tree, which turned out of focus lights into cool star shapes. Too much fun…

Photographers are always looking for new things and new places to photograph. Sometimes all it takes is driving down a road you’ve never been on before to discover a wonderful place full of photo opportunities. That’s exactly what happened to Roxanne and I today. Originally, we were going to go to Spanish Point: a historic site in Sarasota. Of course they had the audacity to be closed on Thanksgiving Day. So we drove down to Englewood. Our first stop was in a shopping district full of quaint shops and restaurants. After an hour or so, we were on the road again. Our goal was to find an interesting marina. On the way I spotted a derelict house with weathered wood, vines, and photogenic debris. We spent half an hour exploring the relic and moved on. In a few minutes, we meandered down a road we’ve never been on before and found a wonderful spot with boats, birds, and bait shops. Sometimes you can discover great photo opportunities by going someplace you’ve never been before. Next time you go on a photo shoot, take the long way home. You never know what you’ll find.  Here are some of the images I captured on Thanksgiving Day:

Roxanne and I found an awesome art district in Sarasota. This section of town is crawling with cool little shops and restaurants. Add a Lensbaby and you have a recipe for some interesting images. The following image was captured with the Lensbaby Soft Focus optic. In Lightroom I added a vignette. To finalize the image, I opened it in Silver Efex Pro to convert it to black and white.

I saw this mannequin in a shop window. The red feathers intrigued me. I shot the image from below so I could capture the eyes. I tweaked the image in Lightroom and applied the Nik Color Efex Pro Bleach Bypass filter to the image, which made the reds pop.

The splash of vibrant colors from this outdoor cafe caught my eye. I walked around until I found a vantage point I liked and took the picture. In Lightroom I used the HSL/Color/Grayscale tab to increase the luminance of the primary colors to make the image pop.

I recently purchased a Panasonic GF-1. The camera uses the micro 4/3rds system. With the kit 14-45 mm lens, the camera has a focal length range that is the 35mm equivalent from 28mm to 90 mm. The camera is very small. The fact that is has a bigger sensor than point and shoot cameras means you’ll be able to control your depth of field with the lens aperture. Point and shoot cameras have a very small sensor which means that point and shoot cameras are not good for portrait photographers or any other type of photographer that requires a small depth of field.

This camera is great for street shooters. My only complaint is the noisy shutter. One time I pressed the shutter button and my subject, who was 10 feet away asked if I took his picture. Overall, I’m really enjoying the camera. If you’re a professional photographer the GF-1 is an excellent alternative when you don’t want the carry an expensive camera everywhere. The camera has point and shoot functionality. But for pros, the camera offers a lot of flexibility including the ability to shoot RAW images. The following image was photographed using the 14mm focal length.