Project 365 - Day 294 - Waiting for Godot ... or something ...

Was at Coronation park in Oakville today.  I saw this scene, and I wanted to capture it.  Nice tree with a bench and the ground was covered in leaves.  I took a couple of shots, and then I thought that it needed something - someone needed to be sitting on the bench.  So for the lack of a willing model, I put the camera on a timer and set up the shot.  I then hoofed it over to the bench and sat down.  I got a couple of good shots, including this one.

Project 365 - Day 293 - Delving into HDR

Today I went to Albion Falls with the Oakville Camera Club.  This is a waterfall in Hamilton Ontario.  I have always wanted to go to the waterfalls in Hamilton, but have never travelled out to them.  Today was my opportunity.

The first couple of shots as I was making my way down to the falls were pretty good, as the sky was cloudy and the light was soft and even.  When I eventually got down to the falls though, that's when the fun started.  The sun came out and it was a beautiful day -- unfortunately this meant that the top of the falls were basked in beautiful light and the bottom was in sheer darkness.  Now, the human eye can take all the info in and tell the brain to underexpose the top and bring up the bottom to make it all even.  So it looks nice to you.  But the camera cannot expose this scene properly, because of the dynamic range of the camera - it is a lot smaller than the human eye/brain combination.  That's where the HDR processing comes in.

You start with exposing the scene properly for the middle, the main subject.  Then you bracket that exposure either 1 or 2 stops up and down.  This means that you under expose by 2 stops, 1 stop then over expose by 2 stops and finally 1 stop. 

I shot this image with +/- 1 stop as it was not that bad.  You can tell by looking at your shots to see what the result is.

Next, I downloaded a trial of Phootmatix Pro v4.2  You can download the trial and check it out before you pay.  The problem is your image is watermarked.  But at $99 for the full program, it's not that bad.... probably one of the cheaper parts of photography.  Besides, it rescues the day in a lot of cases...

To me, this shot is a little overcooked - meaning that I know it's an HDR and it's not quite to my satisfaction as well.  This was my first shot though.  I will be playing with this more .... :-)

Project 365 - Day 292 - Where has all the colour gone?

I don't remember the fall colours being this disjointed last year.  It seems like there was an early turn and all those leaves are now gone, and there are still an abundance of trees that are green.  It is almost like there is a species of tree that is missing from the middle here - maybe that is a direct result of the ash trees being taken down because of the borer infestation.  Dunno...

I got up early today to get a shot of the sunrise, but to my dismay it was way too cloudy to get a good shot of anything - the sun has yet to poke his weary head through these clouds.  So I drove around a bit to parks that I know looking for colours.  I saw some colour, but only on a tree here or a tree there, and places where there was a lot of colour were not accessible to me.

So I went to a park that I had never been to before and looked at individual trees.  I got this shot of a maple leaf.  It's shot against the bright white boring sky, so I cropped out as much as I could.  The good thing about this sky is it casts nice soft light on everything - so that was a plus.

Anyway, here's the shot.

Project 365 - Day 291 - Spooky ....

I got a late start on my photo of the day today.  I was driving around looking for something new, something that said "fall" or "hallowe'en" or something like that.  I stopped at a couple of places, but nothing was really coming to me.  So I started to expand my search.  As I was going back through our neighbourhood, I noticed this bare tree and how the moon was poking through the branches.  So I stopped, and pulled out my tripod.  I backed up enough to line up the moon behind the tree, and I had the cedar in front to frame the bottom of the shot.  I took three shots of this scene, this one was the best.

I played with the colours a bit to make it look a little colder and darker.  I would have liked to get more detail in the moon, but then I would not get any detail in the cedars or the tree itself.

Project 365 - Day 290 - A Bridge too far ... or close ... whatever...

This is a shot of a railing on a bridge on Bronte road shot today.  I love the way the sunset is coming through the railing and you can see some of the colours in the background.  The best part?  When I got home and blew it up there is a lady bug on the bottom rung of the railing ...

Project 365 - Day 289 - Bronte Road Oak Tree

It's a little early for the tree's full colour, but I went and shot this tree at sunset.  I shot it with the sun facing the tree - I tried with the sun behind and bracketed the shots to do an HDR but apparently my HDR skills need some major work.

Project 365 - Day 288 - A Happy Accident

I was trying to get a shot of a leaf today and I was trying different angles with a handheld flash that was controlled by the camera.  I tried backlighting the leaf, but the flash was too strong.  So I put the flash on the ground in the grass and shot away.  I came up with this shot.

Backlighting the leaf really brought out the texture and detail.  I included the red branch of the tree the leaf was on for contrast.  This was shot at 6pm today, when there was plenty of light, but the flash overpowers the ambient light and the combination shutter speed and aperture were enough to keep the ambient out.