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Bodie HDR Interpretation

Posted
HDR Photo of Bodie State Historic Park CA HDR (high dynamic range) imaging is a fun thing to play around with. You are meant to start with a set of photos of the same shot taken at different exposures, but I find that I get nice effects as in the photo to the left by just taking one photo, using Photoshop RAW processor to create two new copies of the image with a -2 and a +2 exposure value, and then using them and the original image as a set of three to process as an HDR image. You have to use software such as Photoshop or other software programs available for sale to combine the images into one. The highlights of the image are formed using the highlights in the underexposed image, the shadows are formed using the shadows in the overexposed image, and then blended with the correctly exposed image. The outcome is greater detail across the entire dynamic range: shadows, through midtones, to highlights.

In this photo the distant mountains and clouds give a great effect, almost like "sumi-e" or ink drawings.

This and other photos of Bodie can be viewed in the Bodie slideshow gallery or the static html Bodie gallery.

Update: Michael Ziegler who keeps an eye on my photoblog posts, added a comment below asking if I could post the original photo which I thought was a great idea, so here it is:

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Comments

Michael Ziegler said…
Hi John,
I am just beginning to learn about HDR photography, and I appreciate your explanations here. (I always wondered how they got those beautiful effects!)
Just for comparison, do you have a "regular" photo of the same scene? I would be curious as to how the original correctly exposed photo would look by comparison.
Really enjoying your weblog. Thanks for sharing with us!

Mike Z
http://myphotomemries.blogspot.com
June 7, 2008 at 6:18 AM
John Corney said…
Hi Mike,

Nice to hear from you again.

You know when I originally did this post I had thought of posting the original as well! It's a great idea, and I will do it as soon as I get a chance..

John
June 7, 2008 at 8:04 PM
John Corney said…
Hi Mike,

I presume you requested emails for follow-up comments. I have posted the original photo of this HDR version from Bodie.

Thanks,

John
June 10, 2008 at 9:29 PM
Michael Ziegler said…
Thanks for posting the original photo. It makes a great comparison of the technique. I just got back from a road trip from Washington state to Texas, and I took some photos that would do well with this idea. Can't wait to try my hand at it!
Mike Z
http://myphotomemries.blogspot.com
June 14, 2008 at 5:05 PM
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Samoan Youth

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This young man was preparing with his friends for his moment of fame on the stage at the Samoan Village at the Polynesian dance festival called Pasifika in Auckland in March this year. Samoan Youth Canon EOS 20D 1/30sec at f/20 ISO 200 Canon 70-300mm lens at 300mm More photographs from the same Pasifika Festival day can be found in my new post, Faces of Pasifika 2007 — A Day at Auckland's Pacific Festival .
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A Grunge Botanical Collection — Five Painterly Garden Pieces

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Over the past few weeks I've been building out a small collection of botanical pieces using photos taken in my garden here in Irvine, California, (and in one case out on a hiking trail here in SoCal), and using AI assistance to give each one a grunge, painterly treatment — dark, richly textured backgrounds with warm gold light breaking through, turning garden snapshots and trailside finds into something closer to old varnished still-life paintings than straight photography. Here's the full set so far. Epiphyllum oxypetalum — Queen of the Night, Painterly Botanical Art A night-blooming cactus that flowers just once or twice a year, for a single night — three blooms at different stages caught in one frame from a night it happened in my garden. Kangaroo Paw — Painterly Grunge Botanical Art Australia's velvety-flowered native, grown in my own garden, its stems reaching in different directions the way it actually grows rather than posed into symmetry. ...
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A Steindachner's Ebony Tarantula at Crystal Cove

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I crossed paths with this fellow on a hike at Crystal Cove State Park this morning, along the Fenceline trail. I posted it to iNaturalist as soon as I got home, and within a few hours had it confirmed by several people: a male Steindachner's ebony tarantula ( Aphonopelma steindachneri ). Turns out the timing wasn't a fluke. Males of this species leave their burrows specifically to search for mates between July and October, so this was a textbook-timed encounter rather than an unusual one — good to actually check that before assuming, since my first instinct was that a July sighting seemed early. After his photo session, I gently nudged him with a stick and he scurried off the trail into the chaparral, safe from being run over by a mountain biker or stomped by an arachnophobic hiker.  Aphonopelma steindachneri is native to the coastal ranges of Southern California and northern Baja California, and it's one of the tarantulas you're genuinely most likely to run into ...
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