Robert's Ramblings

I have been resisting the temptation for quite some time now to play with High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. Tonight in a moment of weakness I finally succumbed, found a nice quiet dark location and captured multiple exposures.

For the uninitiated, the naive and the innocent, HDR is a technique where a set of identical frames are captured over a wide exposure range. The underexposed images capture bright objects such as streetlights, lit windows and reflections. The overexposed images capture the the detail in the shadows. The images in between help to reconstruct the relationship between them all and enhance the details in the mid tones.

Now armed with my set of exposures ranging from 2 seconds to 2 minutes I can use software to reconstruct a single image by getting the best detail from each one. Trey Ratcliff has a great tutorial here 'hdr tutorial'.

As with most things, good things in moderation and so it applies to HDR. I can see how it could get out of hand so for now I'll just dabble a little and see where this goes.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 121 - The Square'. 2+8+30+120 secs at 17mm f/11.0, ISO 1000 hdr

I am a bit disturbed at the size of this cow relative to the chicken. Well at least I from this point of view anyway.

Small realistic figurines placed in an environment normally associated with the full size object create some really odd perspectives. This pair of stall mascots at our local weekend market make it all the more strange with the dramatic scale difference between themselves.

Shots like this one are easy when you are prepared to physically change your perspective through position. Don't be shy to lie flat on the ground to see things from an unusual angle though I don't recommend doing it in the middle of a busy highway without taking the necessary precautions!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 120 - Market Mascots'. 1/8000 sec at 21mm f/4.0, ISO 400 Crop