To change pace a little I decided to try a cityscape HDR. This is my first ever try at such a thing. This is 7 raw shots with the Canon 5D and a 24-105 lens. I shot it at f/8, in the area of the sharpest f/stops for that lens. I brought a hyper-focal distance chart (actually on my friends iphone) to decide f/stops and focal point. I shot one middle exposure, then another 2 stops brighter and darker, then 4 stops, then 8. I used Photomatix. Just a touch of clean up and fine tuning was used in Photoshop.
Thoughts: this was fun walking around the strip at night shooting cityscape's. I did bring my big can of bear mace for the occasional thugs that might try to steal your equipment (and they were eyeballing me this night until I showed them the big can!). Since I am marketing Las Vegas I am going to start getting out a little more for occasional city shots.
Next time I might try a little closer to twilight so that I obtain more sky color.
I generally have no enthusiasm for urban landscapes, but you did a fine job here. The color and light look great and your comp is excellent. Good thinking on your part to expand your portfolio for potential customers.
Daniel
wow now this is sure different seeing this from you, really almost has a 3D feel to it, could very well see this as a travel or welcome to Vegas magazine cover. Glad your venturing in different areas.
Ray Still
Aug 22, 2009 at 10:04 PM
David Leask Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
Hello Mark, love the hyper-smooth look. I've only been going +/- 2, I would expect +/- 4 to be totally white/totally black, but something certainly produced excellent results here. Definitely try the different time for a bit of color in the sky. Looking forward to your results
Thanks everyone for the commonts and feedback. I appreciate it.
hugh wrote:
I've only been going +/- 2, I would expect +/- 4 to be totally white/totally black, but something certainly produced excellent results here.
hugh
Hi Hugh,
According to an article I read by NAPP PS teacher Matt Kloskowski (try to pronounce that) you want to "shoot the exposures in increments of + and - 2 stops" and ""more is usually better." So armed with that statement, and thinking that night shots have an even more radical dynamic range than most other types of photography I went with the more is better approach. So far, for night shots it has worked, but I have yet to compare it to, say, 5 shots or even 3... Next shoot I might even try 9! As far as HDR goes, I still do not have any interest in it for landscape, but for low light/night cityscape I am finding it indispensable.
Sorry we missed seeing you last month when we were in Vegas, but it's good to see you posting some local color shots. I really like this one a lot, in particular you handled the white balance very well and framed it perfectly for that cool 3D effect. Real nice shot.
As far as HDR goes, I still do not have any interest in it for landscape, but for low light/night cityscape I am finding it indispensable.